NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATIVE TASK FORCE ON DEMOGRAPHIC
RESEARCH AND REAPPORTIONMENT
PUBLIC HEARING
CONGRESSIONAL AND STATE LEGISLATIVE REDISTRICTING
Westchester County Board of Legislator's Committee Room
800 Michaelian Office Bldg., 8th Floor
148 Martine Ave
White Plains, New York
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Page 2 NYS Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment, 8-10-2011 TASK FORCE MEMBERS:
SENATOR MICHAEL F. NOZZOLIO, Co-chair
ASSEMBLY MEMBER JOHN MCENENY, Co-chair
SENATOR MARTIN M. DILAN
ASSEMBLY MEMBER ROBERT OAKS
CITIZEN REPRESENTATIVE WELQUIS "RAY" LOPEZ
CITIZEN REPRESENTATIVE ROMAN HEDGES
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Page
AMY PAULIN 15 ASSEMBLY MEMBER 88TH DISTRICT
ANDREA MCCULLOUGH 17 BOARD MEMBER ANTIOCH COMMUNITY SERVICES
DOUG COLETY 22 CHAIR WESTCHESTER GOP
RAYMOND KIERNAN 32 RETIRED COMMISSIONER NEW ROCHELLE FIRE DEPARTMENT
MARY JANE SHIMSKY 39 MEMBER WESTCHESTER COUNTY LEGISLATOR, 12TH DISTRICT
ERIN MALLOY 43 FORMER PRESIDENT WESTCHESTER COUNTY LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS FORMER MAYOR VILLAGE OF IRVINGTON
STEVE KATZ 48 ASSEMBLY MEMBER 99TH DISTRICT
SUSAN LERNER 50 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR COMMON CAUSE NEW YORK
JOHN R. NOLAN 62 COUNSEL LAW AND LAND USE CENTER JAMES D. HOPKINS PROFESSOR OF LAW DIRECTOR KHEEL CENTER ON THE RESOLUTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL DISPUTES, LAND USE LAW CENTER PACE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW
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LAURENCE GOLDSTEIN 67 CITIZEN
ROBERT J. CASTELLI 71 ASSEMBLY MEMBER 89TH DISTRICT
SHARON LINDSEY 75 PRESIDENT LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS, WESTCHESTER
LIAM MCLAUGHLIN 79 2010 CANDIDATE FOR NYS SENATE
JAN DEGENSHEIN 93 CHAIRMAN ROCKLAND BUSINESS ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT DEGENSHEIN ARCHITECTS
KENNETH W. JENKINS 98 CHAIRMAN WESTCHESTER COUNTY BOARD OF LEGISLATORS
BETSY MALCOM 105 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE ACT NOW
JESSICA VICUNA 122 ORGANIZER AND VOLUNTEER ACT NOW
JANE DANIELS 134 CITIZEN
MATT RICHTER 141 CITIZEN
ANDREW A. BEVERIDGE 144 PROFESSOR AND DEMOGRAPHIC CONSULTANT QUEENS COLLEGE, CUNY AND SOCIAL EXPLORER
JUSTIN WAGNER 174 DEMOCRATIC DISTRICT LEADER TOWN OF CORTLANDT
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GREGORY JULIAN 184 PACE UNIVERSITY
THOMAS KELLER 191 MT. VERNON REPUBLICAN COMMITTEE
BRIAN D. KELLY 205 CITIZEN DUTCHESS COUNTY
ZULEMA BLAIR 210 CHAIR DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION MEDGAR EVERS COLLEGE CENTER FOR LAW AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
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3 a.m.)
4 SENATOR MICHAEL F. NOZZOLIO, CO-CHAIR,
5 NYS LEGISLATIVE TASK FORCE ON DEMOGRAPHIC
6 RESEARCH AND REAPPORTIONMENT: Good morning
7 ladies and gentleman. The New York State
8 Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research
9 and Reapportionment begins its public hearing in
10 the Westchester County Office building.
11 We thank the County Executive, Esther
12 Reno [phonetic], and their legislature for
13 providing this forum for the discussions. My
14 name is Mike Nozzolio. I am a New York State
15 Senator representing the Finger Lakes region. I
16 am very pleased to be here with the co-chair of
17 LATFOR, Assemblyman Jack McEneny. And let me
18 introduce other members of the task force.
19 First, Senator Martin Dilan, Assemblyman
20 Robert Oaks, Citizen representative Welquis Ray
21 Lopez, and Citizen representative, Roman Hedges.
22 That the hearings will begin, this is
23 part of the LATFOR's responsibility. The task
24 force's mission is to receive public comment on
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3 is determined to be a citizen input in the best
4 interest of this region for having the lines
5 established for Senate assembly and Congress.
6 We have asked the testifiers throughout
7 the hearings--and this is now the fourth public
8 hearing, that we conducted the first hearing in
9 Syracuse, the second in Rochester, the third in
10 Albany, this fourth in Westchester. And we are
11 taking the task force to every region of the
12 state in conducting hearings and asking for
13 public input.
14 That the--we ask the commentators to
15 focus as much as they possibly can on that issue.
16 What would they like to see structured--what
17 would you like to see structured as the
18 appropriate representative lines for those three
19 legislative bodies. Without further ado, I'd ask
20 Co-chair Assemblyman McEneny for his comments
21 this morning.
22 ASSEMBLY MEMBER JOHN J. MCENENY, CO-
23 CHAIR, NYS LEGISLATIVE TASK FORCE ON DEMOGRAPHIC
24 RESEARCH AND REAPPORTIONMENT: Thank you,
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3 represent Albany--most of Albany city and a
4 number of towns in Albany County. And we're
5 pleased to see the citizen response so far, both
6 by mail and individually--and by your testimony,
7 which is critical.
8 Now, all of these hearings and a great
9 deal of other information is on the LATFOR
10 website. And we would encourage you, if you can
11 make it down here today, or if you do test--
12 testify and you think of something else that you
13 should have said, to continue to communicate with
14 us. All of this becomes part of the official
15 record.
16 A number of people have also drawn
17 individual maps with recommendations of how they
18 feel, either the Congressional or the Senatorial,
19 or the Assembly Districts should be drawn.
20 As the Senator mentioned, this is one in
21 a series. We are doing 12 public hearings across
22 the state, as we did the last time in this
23 legislative process. The first 12 hearings tend
24 to be more conceptual--perhaps a little bit
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3 discussing now are the lines that we have, which
4 have grown obsolete because of the new census.
5 We will then come back at some point,
6 probably in November and December, and do the
7 same 12 hearings all over again, most of them at
8 the same spot. And then we will have, have lines
9 drawn of the proposed new districts, and that
10 tends, obviously, to be a more controversial
11 process.
12 But this is a listening tour which is
13 very real. We've already gotten a number of very
14 good suggestions from New Yorkers across the
15 state. We expect to get more, and without
16 further delay I would ask, I think Senator--you
17 wanted to ask if any of our other people up here
18 on the dais and on the panel would like to
19 comment.
20 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you,
21 Assemblyman McEneny. Are there any members of
22 the task force that wish to make a comment or
23 statement at this time? Senator Dilan.
24 SENATOR MARTIN M. DILAN, NYS LEGISLATIVE
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3 REAPPORTIONMENT: I would just like to, once
4 again, thank our co-chairs for continuing these
5 hearings. And I have made my points in the
6 previous hearings throughout the state.
7 And I do urge the public to go on to the
8 LATFOR website and also listen to the previous
9 hearings to see the contents there. I believe
10 that we have made some progress and positive
11 directions, and I'd like to thank the co-chairs
12 for that. Today I am listening to the co-chairs
13 and saying that I'm looking forward to listening
14 to you, the public, with respect to issues here
15 at Westchester. With that said, thank you.
16 ASSEMBLY MEMBER ROBERT OAKS, MEMBER, NYS
17 LEGISLATIVE TASK FORCE ON DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
18 AND REAPPORTIONMENT: I'm Assemblyman Bob Oaks.
19 I'll just say my welcome to everyone, and look
20 forward to hearing the thoughts and comments as
21 we move forward and in this process. Thank you.
22 ASSEMBLY MEMBER WELQUIS "RAY" LOPEZ,
23 MEMBER, NYS LEGISLATIVE TASK FORCE ON DEMOGRAPHIC
24 RESEARCH AND REAPPORTIONMENT: Good morning,
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3 concentrate your comment today in how you think
4 the State Legislative and Congressional District
5 should be drawn. We want to hear your
6 recommendation on the composition of the district
7 in your area. [Spanish translation]. Gracias.
8 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very, very
9 much--members of the task force. That--before
10 calling up our first speaker today, that the--
11 we'd like to give special thanks to the Chairman
12 of the Westchester Board of Legislatures, who's
13 here, Ken Jenkins. Mr. Jenkins, we appreciate
14 your participation and thank you very much for
15 the opportunity to use your beautiful chambers.
16 I'd also note that the minority leader
17 of the Westchester legislature is here as well as
18 a working in a variety of advisories, that--Jim
19 Maisano, thank you very much for being here--
20 minority leader. With that, we'd also like to
21 recognize two other county legislators who are
22 here. They are not--I believe--on the list
23 immediately, but they may offer testimony, and
24 forgive me if I mispronounce--Mary Jane Shimsky,
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3 Alvarado. With that, Assemblyman McEneny will
4 begin the hearings today by introducing one of
5 his colleagues who will be the first to testify.
6 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: I'm very, very
7 pleased to see a colleague and a great friend
8 here, Amy Paulin, who is a--one of the delegation
9 in the New York State Assembly, representing
10 parts of Westchester County.
11 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: As Assemblywoman
12 Paulin comes up to the podium, I'd like to
13 highlight to every member that this is a hearing
14 which is videographed. The cameras here will
15 create a permanent video record of the hearings,
16 that they also will be produced and available for
17 anyone to view on the LATFOR's website. The
18 entire video of each of the hearings, for the
19 first time, will be made available to the public.
20 Thank you, Assemblyman McEneny. Well, thank you,
21 Assemblywoman Paulin.
22 [Pause]
23 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Now we're okay.
24 ASSEMBLY MEMBER AMY PAULIN, MEMBER, 88TH
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3 forum on a state redistricting plan in my home
4 county. I also want to thank you for starting
5 these hearings over the summer just after our
6 legislative session concluded, as it is very
7 important to start the process as early as
8 possible, considering we may be called back and
9 the primaries may be at a much earlier date. We
10 need to make sure to, you know, get this behind
11 us.
12 Transparency is perhaps the most
13 essential ingredient of the government. Holding
14 these hearings in different regions of our state
15 allows this task force to hear from the people of
16 New York and to take their concerns into
17 consideration as you move through your process.
18 As a state legislature, I'm committed to
19 supporting a fair, equitable and bi-partisan
20 redistricting process. Any redistricting plan
21 must ensure that districts are contiguous,
22 compact, share common interests, and have an
23 established connection with their district, while
24 following our federal and state constitutions and
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3 Clearly, you have a very important job
4 to do, and as a former president of the League of
5 Women Voters, I firmly believe that fair
6 representation encourages confidence in the
7 political process, and thus greater
8 participation, which is fundamental to good
9 government. Equitable representation upholds the
10 basic principal of "one person, one vote"
11 established in the U.S. Constitution.
12 I, like you, believe that all of these
13 principals should be the core of any
14 redistricting plan. Since you are in my
15 district, I wanted to take the opportunity to
16 tell you a little bit about it. It includes
17 Pelham, Pelham Manor, Bronxville, Tuckahoe, East
18 Chester, Scarsdale, and parts of the cities of
19 White Plains and New Rochelle.
20 My district includes a large majority of
21 residential homes. It is economically affluent
22 and well educated. 75% of the people have some
23 college, and about 30% have a graduate or
24 professional degree.
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3 One can travel from the Pelham Manor border to
4 White Plains in 20 minutes, without going outside
5 the district. The community's borders are
6 contiguous, and more importantly, people commonly
7 shop, worship, recreate, socialize and commute
8 across the borders of these seven communities.
9 Three hospitals, Lawrence, Sound Shore
10 Medical Center, and White Plains Hospital are all
11 within the 88th Assembly District and serve the
12 bulk of our residents.
13 There are two - - , which are more
14 socio-economically diverse. A high percentage of
15 these residents have English as their second
16 language. What is important to note is that each
17 of these areas represents the bulk of the
18 minority population in each of these two cities.
19 These residents share needs and concerns
20 regarding child care, health care, housing,
21 language and general quality of life issues.
22 What binds all of these communities
23 together is their common core values and
24 interests. Quality public education is a high
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3 District. School budgets pass easily. Parents
4 are extremely involved with their local schools.
5 The residents are hard-working, but graciously
6 give of their time to their communities and their
7 neighbors.
8 For example, in the town of Pelham, with
9 just over 12,000 people, it has 50--50 community
10 organizations ranging from childcare and little
11 league to meals on wheels and a senior center
12 which serves the people of Pelham and surrounding
13 communities. And I would note that, you know, in
14 the communities that I represent, it is very
15 common for the community organizations to overlap
16 among them and to take care of the residents
17 within them.
18 As a suburban/urban district, the
19 residents share a common concern about preserving
20 green space and creating less intrusive traffic
21 patterns across borders and within communities.
22 Our residents are among the highest users of mass
23 transit, utilizing Metro North, and the Bee-Line
24 bus, in both southerly and northerly directions.
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3 this district, they are--they form the identity
4 of each of these communities to an unusual
5 extent.
6 As I said earlier, I appreciate the
7 challenging job you have before you. Having
8 these hearings is a critical pro--part of the
9 process. Thank you for taking the time to listen
10 to my comments about my district and for
11 particularly coming to the county of Westchester
12 and hearing all of our concerns here. We
13 appreciate the Task Force commitment to this very
14 important project, and I look forward to working
15 with you as it goes along. Thank you very much.
16 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you,
17 Assemblywoman. Andrea McCullough, Board Member
18 Antioch Community Services. Ms. McCullough.
19 ANDREA MCCULLOUGH, BOARD MEMBER, ANTIOCH
20 COMMUNITY SERVICES: Good morning.
21 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Morning.
22 MS. MCCULLOUGH: My name is Andrea
23 McCullough. I am affiliated with a number of
24 organizations, and I am a member of the Black New
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3 testifying for my home neighborhood of Ocean Hill
4 in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York. Ocean Hill
5 is a community bordered by Broadway and East New
6 York Avenues on the north and side, and by Ralph
7 and Van Sinderen Avenues on the west and east.
8 Often overlooked, we are neighbors with
9 Bedford - - , Bushwick, East New York and
10 Brownsville, and we share many of the same ills
11 of these neighborhoods. Having lived in this
12 neighborhood all of my 34 years, I am aware of
13 the history and remember it transitioning from
14 the Italian neighborhood that it was once to the
15 predominantly African-American neighborhood that
16 it is now.
17 I have often--I have also seen the spike
18 in crime in the 1980's, and most recently the
19 drop in crime. As a community, we shop and
20 travel along our main thoroughfares of Atlantic,
21 Rockaway, and Fulton Avenues. Our access to
22 major transportation lines make living in Ocean
23 Hill convenient. It also makes us susceptible to
24 abuse by the Department of Homeless Services and
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3 placed numerous facilities there despite public
4 outcry.
5 While we have been largely overlooked
6 for restorative programs, I believe we as a
7 community, are proud of our homes, blocks and
8 neighborhood, and would not like to be splintered
9 when the maps are re-drawn. Public access,
10 transparency in outreach--had it not been for my
11 decision to actively involve myself in city
12 engagement and pursue information concerning
13 these hearings, I would have been oblivious to
14 this process, and that may directly affect my
15 represent--representation and voting power.
16 While the census-taking process, in its
17 various rounds of the count were highly
18 publicized, and census takers partnered with
19 community organizations, the same level of
20 interaction and outreach should have been done
21 for this direct effect of the census.
22 My suggestion to provide better outreach
23 and public access are as follows: notification
24 of hearings by various news outlets. People do
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3 ads should be placed in mainstream as well as
4 local stations and publications to alert the
5 public of the hearing. Public notification of
6 these hearings and this process should be
7 required by law.
8 The time of the hearings is
9 inconvenient. I was able to take a day off to
10 attend these hearings, and I'm sure there are
11 many others that would have liked to attend them
12 at the--as well, but could not due to the timing.
13 Evening hours would have allowed more public
14 input into this process.
15 Why isn't there an app for this? In the
16 same manner that the MTA allowed developers and
17 the general public to create their MTA apps, for
18 mapping the subway system and local transit
19 lines, instead of doing it privately on their
20 own, this task force could have made it known
21 that programs were needed for this redistricting
22 process, and provided census data from the
23 previous round in 2000, along with criteria and
24 scenarios to developers.
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3 programs could have been updated, and individuals
4 and community groups would have access to data--
5 to census data with the means to make maps that
6 would be understandable to the common citizen.
7 I'm not a developer. I'm more like a tech-savvy
8 consumer, and I don't believe it's too late for
9 this option. But if developers don't know the
10 need, they cannot--they cannot create an app or
11 program to meet it.
12 The web presence is lacking. Googling
13 New York Redistricting 2011 does not bring you to
14 the LATFOR website. It doesn't bring a search.
15 It's a centralized New York government-based
16 website, where the status of the process along
17 with the relevant data is accessible. New York,
18 in comparison to states such as California,
19 redrawthelines.ca.gov, is showing very little
20 information and not inviting individuals and
21 community groups to be part of the process.
22 This lack of voluntary, voluntary
23 information sharing appears intentional and
24 covert. It is government action such as this
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3 government related, that lives in communities
4 such as mine.
5 In closing, in view of the recent news
6 that this Task Force will comply with the law
7 that ends prison-based gerrymandering, I would
8 like to emphasize that my vote, and the vote of
9 every one of my neighbors in Ocean Hill counts.
10 This Task Force should make every effort
11 to finalize reapportioning of the prison count,
12 and - - . Instead of using the deviation allowed
13 by law, this Task Force should desire to be as
14 precise as possible. Thank you.
15 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much.
16 Doug Colety? Good morning, Mr. Colety.
17 DOUG COLETY, REPUBLICAN CHAIRMAN OF
18 WESTCHESTER COUNTY, AND REPUBLICAN COMMISSIONER
19 OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS: Good
20 morning. Thank you, Senator. Good morning,
21 everyone. My name is Doug Colety. I'm the
22 Republican Chairman of the Westchester County,
23 and the Republican Commissioner of the
24 Westchester County Board of Elections.
Ubiqus/Nation-Wide Reporting & Convention Coverage 22 Cortlandt Street – Suite 802, New York, NY 10007 Phone: 212-227-7440 * 800-221-7242 * Fax: 212-227-7524 Page 23 1 NYS Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment, 8-10-2011 2 First, on behalf of the Westchester
3 Republicans, I thank you for holding this public
4 hearing in Westchester County. I'm impressed
5 with this Task Force's commitment to holding
6 public hearings across the state, to ensure that
7 many voices from different regions are heard - -
8 in process.
9 As an elected commissioner, I understand
10 the tight time-frame you are under, especially
11 since we are all expecting the primaries to be
12 moved to June in 2012. Therefore, you must
13 conclude this round of hearings, draft the
14 district lines, hold another round of hearings,
15 and then make amendments to the district lines--
16 all before a necessary vote on the proposed
17 redistricting plan this February. Thank you for
18 starting the process early, because you have a
19 lot of important work to accomplish in a short
20 time frame.
21 My most important request to the Task
22 Force is to do your best to assure that we have a
23 competitive districts for the State Legislative
24 and Congressional seats after redistricting.
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3 Assembly District with a Republican Assemblyman,
4 Bob Castelli, in the 89th district. We ask that
5 this seat not be gerrymandered.
6 It is a compact and contiguous district,
7 with common interests, and we hope the
8 composition remains mostly the same after
9 redistricting. The seat has not changed
10 significantly over the past two redistricting's.
11 On the Senate side, there were
12 significant changes made in 2012, including
13 changes that caused the Democratic registration
14 to rise significantly in Senate district 37, and
15 a Republican registration to decrease in that
16 district. We ask that such changes be modified
17 in this redistricting process, and that you
18 return district 37 to a more competitive
19 district.
20 For Congress we have no problem if
21 Westchester's three seats remain mostly the same.
22 I noticed online that in previous hearings the
23 question was asked about the size of the State
24 Senate. I doubt there are many people in New
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3 Obviously the Senate would be better served
4 having 63 Senators, so that we will not run into
5 problems with ties in the future on votes for
6 leadership.
7 Lastly, I wish to strongly state that
8 we'd prefer that the current state law be
9 followed, and that this Task Force perform the
10 drafting of the district lines as cycle. We
11 strongly support a bi-partisan redistricting, and
12 it is clear that this Task Force is premised upon
13 a bi-partisan redistricting, as there is equal
14 representation from two major parties.
15 We also--we are strongly opposed to
16 changing the process in the middle of the game,
17 to the independent redistricting commission
18 proposed by Governor Cuomo. We believe that the
19 independent commission can only be implemented by
20 a Constitutional amendment, as the procedures for
21 redistricting are clearly spelled out in the
22 state constitution. And that the procedures
23 mandated by the state constitution can only be
24 changed by amendments voted on by the
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3 of New York.
4 We believe that the proposed Cuomo
5 independent commission is flawed, in that the
6 composition of the nominating committee, and
7 commission are very favorable to the Democratic
8 party, and unfavorable to the Republican party--
9 especially when compared to LATFOR, which is
10 truly fair and bipartisan, or the Constitutional
11 amendment passed by the State Senate this last
12 session.
13 Once again, the state government is
14 under time constraints to complete redistricting
15 over the next six months, and we certainly don't
16 have time to reinvent the process right now, with
17 an independent commission--especially one as
18 politically biased as the Cuomo proposal. Thank
19 you for your time, and I wish you's much success
20 with redistricting.
21 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Any questions?
22 Senator Dilan.
23 SENATOR DILAN: Yes, with respect to the
24 size of the Senate, is there any reason why you
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3 should maybe go to 61?
4 MR. COLETY: Well, you know, we're not
5 looking to gerrymander, you know, sitting
6 legislatures out of their districts or cut the
7 size to increase the amount of people that each
8 Senator has to represent.
9 There will be a slight adjustment, but
10 we feel A, that not taking a sitting Senator out
11 of the district, or un-electing a sitting,
12 sitting Senator, or putting all of the Senators
13 in a position where they have to fight for a
14 district that they have to keep.
15 SENATOR DILAN: But, the, the point is,
16 what will be the justification of increasing the
17 size of the Senate? Ten years ago we increased
18 it from 61 to 62. So, I, I would think that
19 there would need to be justification. I believe
20 that the formula that's in the constitution of
21 the state of New York right now, and the way that
22 the census numbers come out, really call for--
23 perhaps maybe the number is staying at 62. But
24 if we wanted to change to an odd number, there
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3 would increase.
4 MR. COLETY: We would prefer that the
5 Senators focus on the redistricting process, and,
6 and less on self-preservation. By reducing the
7 number, you're going to reduce the, the body by
8 one, and it's going to force the Senators to
9 consider which Senator to cut out, and I think
10 it's more important we focusing to--we keep the
11 focusing--focus on redistricting and less on
12 self-preservation.
13 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Mr. Colety, thank you
14 for your testimony. A couple of questions.
15 First, on the comment by Senator Dilan, as we see
16 congressional districts growing to the size of
17 around 717,000 people, it makes, in many's view,
18 the congressional representatives--just by having
19 to represent so many more remote, more difficult
20 to access--a much more difficult job than it was
21 10, 20, 30 years ago, when the districts were
22 half of that size. Is that your motivation in
23 terms of increasing the number of Senate
24 representatives--in terms of the more closeness
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3 MR. COLETY: Well, we would rather see
4 more representatives in these legislative bodies.
5 In--in lieu of having more staff. I think as the
6 size of the districts increase, the legislator--
7 legislators are forced to hire more staff. I
8 think it's more important we have more
9 legislators and less staff.
10 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: One last question.
11 The issue of putting on your hat as elections
12 commissioner--that moving the primary date, from
13 September to June, in the same year that
14 redistricting for Congressional and state
15 legislative lines happen--have you forecast what
16 type of challenges that would create to a large
17 county board of elections, such as exists here in
18 Westchester?
19 MR. COLETY: Oh, yeah, they--the--we've
20 just come out of a redistricting cycle here on
21 the county--for the county board of legislatures
22 lines and for two cities within Westchester, the
23 city of New Rochelle and the city of--the city of
24 Yonkers will also be done next year.
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3 it's taken about 90 days to perfect the lines, to
4 take the metes and bounds, and to move voters
5 from one district to another, and, and redraw
6 maps. Having congressional lines, senate lines,
7 assembly lines, and another city next year, you
8 know, we're hopeful that this process would be
9 done by February next year.
10 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: We're concerned with
11 that compactness of the process. And that's why
12 LATFOR has begun the process. Assemblyman
13 McEneny and I agree, and members of the task
14 force are trying to comply with our fiduciary
15 responsibilities, and to--whatever is decided,
16 will be decided--in terms of the final process,
17 but we could no longer wait.
18 And that's our concern, basically, is
19 with the timing. And you've sensed that the, the
20 troops on the ground that must implement the
21 final product are also anxious about those
22 challenges.
23 MR. COLETY: Absolutely. Every, every
24 employee at the board of elections is going to be
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3 February. All of the political parties will have
4 to interview, fill their candidates earlier. The
5 petition process is going to be moved much
6 earlier. So, with everything that the
7 administrative bodies have to do here in
8 Westchester with these re-drawing of lines, we're
9 hopeful to get it done even sooner than February,
10 if possible.
11 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Chairman and
12 Commissioner, thank you very much for your
13 insights and we appreciate your testimony today.
14 MR. COLETY: Thank you, Senator.
15 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: We're also
16 joined by another colleague from the State
17 Assembly, Sandy Galef and Gary, Gary Pretlow, my
18 classmate elected in the same year, also in the
19 back of the chamber.
20 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Except that Pretlow
21 looks a lot younger than you, Jack.
22 [Laughter]
23 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Pete Healy
24 [phonetic]? Pete Healy? Raymond Kiernan?
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3 NEW ROCHELLE FIRE DEPARTMENT: Good morning,
4 Senator, members of the Task Force. My name is
5 Raymond Kiernan. I am just recently retired from
6 the New Rochelle Fire Department, ten days ago.
7 I served as the Fire Commissioner for a period
8 there.
9 Where I worked is with elected officials
10 on every level of government and peers throughout
11 the region to protect our community. During my
12 26 years as Commissioner, the Westchester
13 congressional district lines have been relatively
14 static, with the bulk of southern and central
15 Westchester within one district. From a public
16 safety standpoint, this has been beneficial, and
17 a common interest in needs of our community have
18 been increased--increasingly evident.
19 Just north of New York City, Westchester
20 plays a critical support role in its emergency
21 response and requires robust preparedness. Many
22 from our region responded on September 11th and
23 risked within our own community having increased-
24 -especially given our vast transportation
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3 communal railroads. The unique--the unique
4 status has been recognized by a local safety
5 professional and it is by the federal government
6 through information and resource sharing
7 partnerships.
8 For example, the Westchester County
9 Special Operations Task Force, which includes
10 fire departments in New Rochelle, Yonkers, Mount
11 Vernon, White Plains, East Chester, Scarsdale,
12 Greenville, Fairview, Harstdale, receive federal
13 support with help from Congresswoman Nita Lowey,
14 so that we can work cooperatively to respond to
15 life-threatening emergencies in the regions.
16 While we have not experienced any
17 terrorism attacks since September 11, our
18 training and equipment has been used often in
19 hazardous situations, including rescue of trapped
20 workers in trenches, and hazardous material
21 incidents.
22 We have been particularly fortunate to
23 be represented by Nita Lowey, from the select
24 Committee on Homeland Security, and her current
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3 Subcommittee. She has been uniquely positioned
4 to address our collective concerns and individual
5 department needs.
6 Congresswoman Lowey successfully enacted
7 legislation to bolster a national strategy for
8 communications coordination among first
9 responder, and has secured tens of millions in
10 direct federal assistance for upgrades to
11 equipment for local emergency response, and law
12 enforcement. Congresswoman Lowey has been the
13 leading advocate in our region for a variety of
14 invaluable grants. She works across party lines
15 with Congressman Peter King of Long Island, who
16 chairs the Homeland Security Committee, to ensure
17 that the region with, with higher populations and
18 greater risk receive adequate federal security of
19 resources.
20 I urge you to strongly consider the
21 impact of redistricting on our first responder
22 community. Common priorities and unique
23 challenges in the northern city suburbs are best
24 addressed by maintaining a congressional district
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3 Safety professionals in our area have a history
4 of working cooperatively one with another and
5 with Congresswoman Lowey, that we should continue
6 to enhance our ability to protect our communities
7 and keep tax payer costs down.
8 In addition, New Yorkers have seniority
9 and many jurisdictions in Congress, including
10 Homeland Security. I urge you to ensure
11 redistricting does not create competitiveness
12 among incumbents and could endanger the
13 effectiveness of our state and region's
14 representatives. Thank you for this opportunity
15 to testify before you today.
16 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you for your
17 testimony, Mr. Kiernan. And more importantly,
18 thank you for your lifetime service to volunteer
19 services and responder services, and professional
20 services.
21 I--in the--as the tenth year anniversary
22 of September 11th comes forward, we certainly
23 want to give even greater pause and thanks for
24 the services provided by those in your
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3 testimony. Any questions of the panel? Mr.
4 Hedges?
5 ASSEMBLY MEMBER ROMAN HEDGES, MEMBER,
6 NYS LEGISLATIVE TASK FORCE ON DEMOGRAPHIC
7 RESEARCH AND REAPPORTIONMENT: As you know, we
8 are going to be required to lose two
9 Congressional districts, and you've clearly
10 expressed a strong view that we should pay
11 attention to incumbency, and not put incumbents
12 together. But that requirement that we lose two
13 congressional districts is going to challenge all
14 of us. How would you suggest that we balance
15 that concern that you voiced, with that
16 requirement that we lose two?
17 MR. KIERNAN: Well, I don't really know
18 the ins and outs of the politics. I just know
19 that, from a public safety standpoint, and from a
20 Homeland Security standpoint, we have to address
21 it the best way possible. I'll leave that up to
22 you fellas how to--how to handle a situation like
23 that. I really don't know the answer.
24 What I can tell you is that we need
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3 money to defend the cities that are a perimeter
4 from New York City. My city was maybe the first
5 if--maybe Jersey City could have beat us, but we
6 were one of the first into Homeland--into the
7 World Trade Center. We were on mutual aid; we
8 were almost to the Bronx to relocate, and they
9 said continue on in. So, an incident like that,
10 or multiple incidents in the region will tax
11 every department.
12 And basically, you know, law enforcement
13 has done a great job of preventing incidents. I
14 think about ten have been prevented in New York
15 City alone. But sometimes something's going to
16 get through, sooner or later, and you need to
17 keep the forces like the fire departments in your
18 region strong, so they can respond to these
19 areas.
20 Since they're bolstered up to handle a
21 weapons of mass destruction, or a terrorist
22 attack, they are also bolstered up to handle
23 every day complicated emergencies. Hazardous
24 material incidents, construction accidents,
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3 what I want to keep strong.
4 I really don't know the answer to your
5 question. I think that you fellas would know how
6 to do that a lot better than I do. But I just
7 have to know that you have to keep areas strong
8 in public safety. We've thought of falling back,
9 in the ten years since 9/11. We have had a
10 situation where people now want to cut, cut, cut
11 budgets, get rid of this, get rid of that, and
12 firemen who were once in, you know, held in--in
13 high esteem ten years ago, now there's battles
14 over pensions, and costs of fire departments and
15 everything else. So what we need--we need to
16 keep our first responders strong. As far as how
17 to do it, as far as districting goes, I don't
18 know.
19 MR. HEDGES: Let me follow up, then, in-
20 -in one way, if I might. You specifically
21 mentioned two congress people who have particular
22 roles in that arena in Washington. Would you--in
23 your view, suggest that we give those two
24 individuals, those two districts priority? In
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3 MR. KIERNAN: I wouldn't have any
4 objection, no.
5 MR. HEDGES: Okay, thank you.
6 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Any other questions
7 to the panel? Thank you very much, Mr. Kiernan.
8 MR. KIERNAN: Thank you.
9 MR. HEDGES: You know, we are also
10 joined, just out in the hall right now, by
11 Assembly member Steve Katz, who has joined us.
12 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Minority leader, my
13 sign indicates to me that County Legislator, Mary
14 Jane Shimsky, would like to speak, and has
15 another engagement that she must attend. So
16 please, welcome to County Legislature Shimsky.
17 MARY JANE SHIMSKY, WESTCHESTER COUNTY
18 LEGISLATOR, 12TH DISTRICT: Good morning and
19 thank you. Chairman Nozzolio, Chairman McEneny,
20 members of the New York State Legislative Task
21 Force on Demographic Research and
22 Reapportionment, good morning and thank you for
23 convening this hearing in Westchester County. My
24 name is Mary Jane Shimsky. I am the Westchester
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3 district, which is comprised of the southern two
4 thirds of the town of Greenburgh.
5 My district, along with certain other
6 county legislative districts, are contained
7 within the 35th State Senate district, and the
8 92nd State Assembly district. Both of my
9 districts epitomize the best of legislative
10 reapportionment, and should not be disturbed, if
11 they continue to meet the population
12 requirements. Any changes should be limited to
13 fine tuning, to meet legal requirements.
14 While most of my comments are
15 specifically geared toward the 35th State Senate
16 district, which is comprised of the town of
17 Greenburgh, the town of Mount Pleasant--both in
18 their entirety, and the part of Yonkers south of
19 these towns. These comments, for the most part,
20 apply equally to the 92nd Assembly district as
21 well.
22 As it currently exists, the 35th Senate
23 district is compact. It respects municipal
24 borders. It is diverse, and there is a real
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3 It is vital to remember that Westchester
4 County is oriented from north to south, and not
5 from east to west. Our major rivers flow from
6 north to south. Most of our major highways and
7 most of our mass transit run north/south.
8 Befitting our county's historical relationship
9 with New York City, as they currently exist, our
10 state legislative districts make sense, because
11 the Hudson River borders on municipalities. The
12 Saw Mill River, the Saw Mill River Parkway, the
13 New York State Thruway, the Hudson line of the
14 Metro North Commuter Railroad--all run through
15 the communities in these legislative districts.
16 Many of the issues my constituents have
17 with state government concern these rivers and
18 transportation arteries. The--this commonality
19 of interests stand in marked contrast with the
20 district as it existed before the last
21 redistricting. At that time, the 35th State
22 Senate district included the town of East
23 Chester. I like the town of East Chester. I
24 like the people I know from East Chester, but the
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3 that town did not share these arteries.
4 The Hudson River plays a major role in
5 the western part of the city of Yonkers, as well
6 as in the towns of Greenburgh and Mount Pleasant-
7 -but not in East Chester. State aid for
8 waterfront development along the Hudson,
9 environmental issues involving the Hudson--
10 including its cleanup, navigation and recreation
11 along the Hudson--all concern the municipalities
12 currently within the 35th Senate district, but
13 are far less important to East Chester.
14 If there are issues concerning the
15 Hudson line on the Metro North Commuter Railroad,
16 or issues concerning the Sawmill River, or the
17 Sawmill River Parkway, or the southern regions of
18 the New York State Thruway--those are issues that
19 affect all of the communities in the 35th Senate
20 district, as currently configured.
21 East Chester has its own rivers and
22 transportation arteries to worry about. The
23 current district's commonality of interest helps
24 our communities, because our legislators can
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3 single-mindedly look out for our community's
4 needs. This fosters more legislative
5 responsiveness to the people.
6 It should also be noted that keeping the
7 35th State--Senate district "as is," would be a
8 gesture of bipartisanship, as it was originally
9 drawn for a Republican incumbent, and is
10 currently represented by a Democrat. This
11 electoral pattern suggests a well-drawn district.
12 Thank you for your time and your attention.
13 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you, Madam
14 County Legislature. Any questions of the panel?
15 That type of insight is very helpful. Thank you
16 for putting it on the record.
17 MS. SHIMSKY: Thank you very much, Mr.
18 Chairman.
19 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Before our next
20 speaker, I'd like to acknowledge the appearance
21 of the Honorable Senator Ruth Hassell Thompson.
22 Very nice to see you again, Senator. Erin
23 Malloy?
24 ERIN MALLOY, FORMER PRESIDENT,
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3 FORMER MAYOR, VILLAGE OF IRVINGTON: Good
4 morning, gentleman. I am Erin Malloy. I live at
5 35 Riverview Road in Irvington, New York. I am
6 providing testimony based on my previous
7 positions as president of the League of Women
8 Voters of Westchester, and mayor of the village
9 of Irvington.
10 Many groups are strong--strongly
11 advocating legislation to put into place an
12 independent redistricting commission in New York.
13 On the congressional level, federal law already
14 addresses some of the inequities and independent
15 redistricting commission would seek to end. An
16 equal number of districts per district, or the
17 "one voice, one vote" principle, is required for
18 congressional districts.
19 Also, because state officials enact the
20 new maps, members of Congress are not directly
21 involved in selecting their own voters. So while
22 this has been a focus on the state level, we have
23 the opportunity to work together across various
24 regions, party lines, and legislative bodies, to
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3 the most advantageous position in Congress.
4 Based on my time in municipal
5 government, I cannot overstate the value of
6 having a strong federal representation, not only
7 to fight for funding for local projects, but also
8 to ensure that actions in Washington relieve, not
9 create burdens that force local governments to
10 raise taxes or compromise services and quality of
11 life.
12 Even though many people are justifiably
13 frustrated with Congress's seemingly perpetual
14 state of stalemate, we cannot lose sight of all
15 that is respond--all that is at stake for New
16 York. For example, consider the impact of losing
17 federal health, security, and transportation
18 support. Responsibilities to protect our
19 residents fall to the state, counties, and local
20 governments. Our infrastructure suffers and
21 decreases the quality of life for commuters and
22 residents.
23 We lose opportunities to create jobs in
24 construction, health care, and other industries,
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3 federal taxes, versus what we get in retiring
4 from Uncle Sam--currently 80 cents on the dollar-
5 -could grow even more.
6 That is why I hope you will preserve as
7 much seniority and leverage and in our delegation
8 as possible. Locally, Congresswoman Nita Lowey,
9 and Congresswoman--Congressman Elliot Engle are
10 effective and responsive representatives. In
11 addition, Congresswoman Lowey is the only New
12 Yorker on the Homeland Security Appropriations
13 Committee, and she works closely with another
14 senior New Yorker, Republican chair Peter King,
15 Homeland Security Committee member.
16 She and Mr. Engel both advanced health
17 care and environmental priorities for our region,
18 related to the Hudson River, and our many health
19 institutions here in Washing--Westchester County,
20 and the broader metropolitan area, from her seat
21 as the senior member of the Appropriations
22 Committee, and his on the Energy and Commerce
23 Committee.
24 I work as the Director of Development
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3 residential care for adults with development
4 disabilities. Our budget has been cut 7.4% this
5 year, jeopardizing the long-term financial health
6 of one of the finest providers of this care in
7 Westchester. Any reductions in federal funding
8 could have a profound impact on 87 residents, 200
9 employees, and their families.
10 Now, I know a thing or two about fair
11 elections. In my first mayoral bid, I had an
12 electoral victory become a game of chance, which
13 I lost through the disenfranchisement from one--
14 of one voter. Political competition is essential
15 for our electoral system to be effective, and
16 every elected official should expect to work hard
17 to earn re-election.
18 I hope your Task Force will avoid
19 unnecessarily combining districts, in a way that
20 threatens the service of members who have worked
21 hard to attain positions that benefit New York
22 greatly. Thank you very much.
23 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much.
24 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: Thank you.
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3 MS. MALLOY: No, I actually won by one
4 vote, but they threw the vote out in the Appeals
5 Court.
6 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: My first
7 election was a tie.
8 MS. MALLOY: The--well, there you go.
9 What did they do for you?
10 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: They gave it--
11 they gave it to the other guy.
12 MS. MALLOY: God, they give it--
13 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: [Interposing]
14 It was a primary.
15 MS. MALLOY: Oh, well, I had a coin
16 grab. Thank you very much.
17 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much.
18 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: Thank you.
19 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Assemblyman Katz?
20 Morning, Assemblyman.
21 STEVE KATZ, MEMBER, 99TH DISTRICT: Good
22 morning. I get to see some of my, my colleagues
23 and friends from the, the Assembly down here in
24 our beautiful part of the state. I thank you for
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3 holding an open dialogue about the important
4 issue of redistricting. Last fall, I ran for
5 office talking, among other things, about the
6 dire need for independent redistricting. Simply
7 put--and I mean no offense by this statement,
8 whatsoever, because you know how much respect I
9 do have for what I saw in the last six months up
10 there with the people involved, the people
11 involved in--in our government. I mean, no, no
12 offense whatsoever, but we cannot trust
13 politicians to make the right decisions when it
14 comes to prolonging their existence in office.
15 In my opinion, it is a conflict of interest.
16 Case in point, this past April, the
17 legislative body in Westchester--the Westchester
18 Board of--County Board of Legislators approved a
19 redistricting plan, which the League of Women
20 Voters walked away from due to exclusion.
21 Challengers were blatantly gerrymandered out of
22 their districts, to allow entrenched incumbents
23 to skate by without a fight.
24 Simply put--this was not right. And I
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3 While I commend your hard work in making an open
4 and transparent process, I remain convinced that
5 an independent redistricting commission--truly
6 nonpartisan, would best serve the people of our
7 state.
8 I thank you again for taking the time
9 from your--for you--from your summer vacation to
10 visit us here in Westchester, and I hope you come
11 to a sound conclusion following these hearings.
12 Thank you so much.
13 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: Thank you very
14 much.
15 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you,
16 Assemblyman. Susan Lerner?
17 SUSAN LERNER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COMMON
18 CUASE NEW YORK: Thank you very much, and good
19 morning. I'm not going to revisit the general
20 principles which I talked about in Albany--
21 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: [Interposing] I was
22 just going to say, you look very familiar.
23 MS. LERNER: And I'm going to become
24 more familiar, I think, over the course--
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3 wonderful.
4 MS. LERNER: --of these hearings. I, I
5 apologize to the people who are going to be
6 watching the hearing through the video that will
7 be put up on the internet, because they won't
8 have access to some of the maps which I've
9 provided as part of our testimony--at least
10 directly in relation to the video. But for
11 people watching at home later on, the maps are
12 available on Common Causes Redistricting website
13 and blog, which is www.nyredistrict--I'm sorry--
14 citizensredistrictny.org/blog. It's our map and
15 democracy blog.
16 And I'm very pleased to see such a
17 wonderful turnout here in Westchester, so I am
18 not going to be talking about Westchester, in
19 terms of what we've seen in our analysis, because
20 I think there are community activists and elected
21 representatives who are in a much better position
22 to talk about the situation on the ground in
23 Westchester. Although, it is contained in my
24 testimony, and there are a number of maps
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3 I'd like to, instead, point out my
4 testimony, in my written testimony and the maps,
5 the portion that relates to the Hudson Valley,
6 because I suspect the justice--there were really
7 no Hudson Valley activists or community members
8 at the Albany hearing. There probably are
9 relatively few, if any, people from Hudson Valley
10 who will have travelled down to Westchester, at
11 least in my conversations with those activists.
12 I wasn't finding people who were planning to be
13 here. So I'd like to highlight--because there is
14 no specific--
15 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: [Interposing] And if
16 I may just interrupt for one second, Ms. Lerner,
17 that we will ensure that your entire written
18 testimony will be part of the official record of
19 these proceedings.
20 MS. LERNER: Right.
21 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: And particularly note
22 your comments, in its entirety, will be placed
23 there.
24 MS. LERNER: So I--so I would expect,
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3 would just like to point to a couple of things
4 that are interesting about demographic changes in
5 the Hudson Valley, because I suspect there will
6 not be community activists to talk about that.
7 And I think as you are undoubtedly already aware,
8 the major demographic shifts in our state are
9 actually seen in the Hudson Valley, or at least
10 the increase in population. The Hu--the mid-
11 Hudson region, to the surprise of many, was the
12 area of the state that showed the greatest
13 increase in population. And, again, similar to
14 the situation in Albany, what we see is the
15 increase in population is primarily due to
16 minority population increase.
17 So the black population there grew by
18 25%, the Asian population by almost 40%, and the
19 Latino population by more than 70%. And, again,
20 following some of the patterns we've seen in
21 other places, the--at least the African American
22 population tends to concentrate in the urban
23 areas, which include the valley of Spring Valley,
24 and Rockland County, and the four cities along
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3 The Hud--the Hispanic population is more
4 dispersed; but really the salient fact is shown
5 in the map that we have called Hudson Valley
6 Population Change 2000 to 2010, and the map that
7 follows right after that, which is the current
8 State Senate districts. What we've done is we've
9 mapped the population shift in the current
10 districts. And we've provided a color code as to
11 whether those districts are under-populated or
12 over-populated on the scale of trying to have a
13 good--basically equivalent districts, as required
14 by federal law.
15 The first map shows that there's been a
16 tremendous significant increase in population in
17 the Hudson Valley, and when you look at the
18 second map you see that there are two districts--
19 State Senate districts there, district 38 and
20 district 39, which are overpopulated by any
21 measure.
22 District 38 has more than 10%
23 overpopulation, and district 39, 5-10%. So
24 clearly, the Hudson Valley is an area where the
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3 adjustment in the district lines. And that means
4 also that there will be adjustment in the
5 congressional district lines.
6 And as we look at some of the factors,
7 the income--the ethnic populations--the
8 commonalities of interest, it seems to us that
9 there are some changes which we would hope to see
10 in the maps, particularly--not only in the state
11 Senate but in the congressional districts, where
12 we question why district 17 is drawn the way it
13 is, where we believe that the black community in
14 Yonkers should not be split in two by district
15 17. And also in district 22, we believe it is
16 really a--that that district could be much more
17 contiguous, and that really the five cities of
18 the Hudson Valley region--Peakskill, Middletown,
19 Newburgh, Beacon, and Poughkeepsie and certainly-
20 -at least the four on the Hudson River should be
21 in the same congressional district, and we
22 question why that district extends all the way to
23 Binghamton and Ithaca, hundreds of miles away
24 from the Hudson Valley, rather than being
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3 And also in terms of the State Assembly,
4 we believe, again, that those communities of
5 interest that are represented by the com--by the
6 communities which go up the Hudson River are ones
7 which should be--to the maximum extent, together.
8 We think that Assembly District 1--I'm
9 sorry, Assembly District 100 right now, takes
10 Poughkeepsie and Beacon out of Dutchess County.
11 However, in that situation we believe the cities
12 are directly connected to areas across the river
13 by the bridges, and while it looks strange on the
14 map, we think that that actually may reflect
15 communities of interest. And we are reaching out
16 to Hudson Valley activists to ask them whether
17 those--that conjunction makes sense.
18 But other areas for discussion in the
19 Hudson Valley of--four assembly districts, we
20 believe, are the intersection between district 94
21 and district 95, because the minority communities
22 of Rockland County and the Spring Valley area are
23 split, and we question whether that split should
24 continue.
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3 98 on the Assembly side and Senate district 42,
4 carved Middletown out of Orange County to be
5 joined with areas far to the north and west, and
6 we question whether that is a division which
7 should be continued in the new manner. So thank
8 you very much.
9 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank, thank you.
10 It--this type of analysis is extremely helpful to
11 the Task Force to continue to get that type of
12 input that--I, I don't know where you're from,
13 Ms. Lerner, but I assume it's from--in a
14 metropolitan region, and that it's one thing--I'd
15 like you to, as you continue to review this
16 process, give consideration to the fact that when
17 you make some districts smaller, you will make
18 other districts much, much, much larger.
19 And--not for today, but--I hope to see
20 you in the future, that--give some sentiment to
21 the logistical problems it takes to represent a
22 district, whether it be for the Senate, the
23 Assembly Congress, that are larger in geography
24 than many states. And then, as you--every action
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3 And that--again, I know you're urban-
4 centric, and I hope that in your important
5 position, that you would look towards the
6 geographic challenges that these suggestions may
7 engender. And that I, I understand your
8 sincerity and your assistance, and it is welcome-
9 -I mean that sincerely, but I'd like you--and
10 this is the second time I've had the benefit of
11 hearing--and the Task Force has had the benefit
12 of hearing your testimony. I'd like you to
13 consider that position as well, as you make these
14 suggestions throughout the state.
15 MS. LERNER: We are very cognizant of
16 that. Just a personal note--I personally grew up
17 on a farm, even though I live in the city right
18 now, so I'm very aware of the difference between
19 outlook--outlooks and the challenges of distance
20 in larger districts.
21 And we are reaching out to activists not
22 only in urban centers, but activists in the
23 southern tier, in the Adirondacks area, in
24 Niagara, and in areas that we feel are often not
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3 to identify activists in the cities and asking
4 them to participate in some way, either by filing
5 written testimony or by sharing their concerns
6 with us that we can then share with the
7 committee.
8 So I very much appreciate that comment,
9 and obviously, you know, in five minutes--we're
10 just hitting some highlights and are happy to
11 share further thoughts. In the future, either
12 part of the hearing process or informally, as we-
13 -as you are struggling with trying to draw a good
14 map.
15 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: Thank you. If
16 I may? I, I appreciate your testimony and the
17 fact that you take a different aspect of the full
18 testimony, so that we can focus on it. And I was
19 very pleased to see that Common Cause and
20 yourself acknowledges that when we follow the
21 Voting Rights Act, and we follow the State
22 Constitution, that we don't wind up drawing
23 cubes. It doesn't wind up like a checkerboard.
24 It follows concentrations of minorities that
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3 also has a block on border rules. If you break a
4 city line once, you have to make the math
5 absolutely exact. In the Congress, the math has
6 to be exact. And when we get out into the towns,
7 it doesn't matter if--unless they're larger than
8 a Senate district, or Assembly district, they
9 have to be kept together.
10 So sometimes the finished product,
11 whether it's done by a Common Cause, the League
12 of Women Voters, or the legislature itself--will
13 not look the way that a lay person that doesn't
14 understand these complications, would assume it
15 would look. And every time there's a spur going
16 off in one direction, you'll hear charges of
17 gerrymandering and undue political influence,
18 when many times that's just the way it is--and is
19 often legally mandated.
20 MS. LERNER: And, and that's why--thank
21 you, Assembly Member, we share that concern.
22 We're doing workshops across the state with
23 activists, in order to explain some of the ins
24 and outs of the redistricting process. There's
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3 give on redistricting, somebody stands up and
4 says, "Why don't we just take a ruler. Why don't
5 we just do an algorithm? Why don't we just have
6 square lines everywhere in the state?" And
7 that's an interesting process to get them to
8 understand the idea of communities of interest
9 and the requirements of federal law.
10 So, you know, we--one of the things
11 which I think is challenging for all of us, is to
12 help the public understand. And that's why we
13 very strongly urge you when you do release your
14 maps, to have an explanation of some of the
15 choices that you've made. Why there is this--
16 what might to an untrained eye look like a
17 strange bulge, and what factors you were weighing
18 that caused you to make that choice and deviate
19 from what somebody not familiar with the process
20 would say should be a straight line.
21 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: And that's the
22 purpose of the second round of hearings, when
23 people can talk about specific decisions which
24 appear to have been made, and you want to know
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3 to know those, those reasons.
4 MS. LERNER: Well, I think we're going
5 to get to know each other very, very well in the
6 coming six months. Thank you.
7 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Look forward to that.
8 Thank you very much for your testimony. That--
9 also attending today's proceedings is the
10 Honorable Andrea Stewart Cousins. Senator
11 Cousins, thank you for your attendance; very nice
12 to see you again. Professor John Nolan.
13 PROFESSOR JOHN R. NOLAN, COUNSEL, LAW
14 AND LAND USE CENTER, JAMES D. HOPKINS PROFESSORT
15 OF LAW, DIRECTOR, KHEEL CENTER ON THE RESOLUTION
16 OF ENVIRONMENTAL DISPUTES, LAND USE LAW CENTER,
17 PACE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW: Senators, members
18 of the Assembly and Task Force, thank you for
19 hosting this hearing in Westchester County. I am
20 a law professor at Pace Law School. I am Counsel
21 to the Land Use Law Center.
22 There our work is primarily on
23 sustainable growth and development--economic
24 development in environmental conservation. We
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3 trained in an intensive leadership training
4 program 2,500 leaders from that area we've moved
5 to the Finger Lakes. We've now trained 300
6 leaders from that area.
7 Altogether, we work with about 500 local
8 governments throughout the state, and my
9 perspective on this redistricting matter is
10 purely governmental, the relationship between the
11 federal government, the state government, the
12 county government, and the local governments.
13 We work at the federal level primarily
14 with HUD, DOT, and EPA. At the state level, we
15 work with the Department of Transportation, the
16 Department of Housing, DEC and ESDC. At the
17 county level we work with planning and
18 transportation, DPW. And then we work with all
19 of these local governments, and for things to
20 work efficiently, there has to be vertical
21 integration. There has to be a relationship
22 between federal, state, county and local
23 interaction resources. The flow of information,
24 etcetera.
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3 examples from our district 18--our congressional
4 district 18, because it is where we work most
5 intensively. In that district, we have created
6 what's called LISWIC, the Long Island Sound
7 Watershed Inter-municipal Counsel. It was pulled
8 together primarily because of a federal
9 influence, under the Clean Water Act. These
10 local governments each individually had to do a
11 great deal to control non-plant source pollution.
12 They had seven things, that each one of them was
13 required to do independently, and they pulled
14 themselves together with county government
15 involvement, with DEC involvement to create an
16 inter-municipal enterprise to do these things
17 together at great cost-savings and much better
18 efficiency.
19 We, in Westchester county, in this 18th
20 district, we have the I-287 corridor. That is
21 host to six million square feet of empty office
22 space, which is a tremendous drag on our tax
23 base, on our economy, and our jobs. That area
24 has been designated by our federal transportation
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3 corridor in this metropolitan region.
4 We have got to work together with DOT--
5 both at the state and federal level, with this
6 federally created metropolitan planning
7 organization, and with the governments, between
8 Tarrytown and Horchestire [phonetic], that--in
9 Westchester are that--that corridor, that
10 economic development and transportation corridor.
11 We host every month, mayors from the ten
12 largest cities in the Hudson Valley. Six of
13 those are in Westchester County. These are where
14 500,000 people live, with 15% of the folks there
15 living at or below the poverty line. Our focus,
16 because it's their focus, is on economic
17 development.
18 We're working now with Lieutenant
19 Governor, we're working with ESDC, we're working
20 with the federal government--again, on how to
21 bring jobs into these center cities--these center
22 cities which are the economic engines of their
23 region. We cannot do that without integrated
24 efforts on the part of the federal, state,
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3 Finally, we're working on the housing
4 settlement case, the communities in our area--31
5 of them that have been implicated in the
6 settlement of the False Claims Act litigation
7 brought against Westchester County and it's 31
8 communities, and we are doing a lot of very
9 productive work with those communities on
10 developing fair and affordable housing that
11 requires the energies of the county government,
12 the local governments, the state government, and
13 the federal government.
14 And within this 18th congressional
15 district, we have had the tremendous benefit of
16 working with Congresswoman Nita Lowey's office on
17 each and every one of these. And she has a--a
18 perspective that involves her with the state
19 agencies. And the state agencies that we're--
20 that we've worked with understand increasingly
21 that they have to work with HUD and DOT and the
22 EPA.
23 So, in closing, I wanted to just cast a
24 favorable note on this particular hearing and
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3 in our government, about inefficiency of
4 government--and I think what this Com--this Task
5 Force, essentially is about--is efficiency in
6 government--coherence. And I believe that this
7 perspective of federal, state, county, and local
8 alignment is incredibly important in your
9 deliberations, and I appreciate the time to give
10 you that perspective. Thank you.
11 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much.
12 Any questions, members of the panel? I see none,
13 thank you for your testimony.
14 MR. NOLAN: Thank you.
15 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Mr. Laurence
16 Goldstein?
17 LAURENCE GOLDSTEIN, CITIZEN: Thank you
18 for coming to Westchester for this public
19 hearing. My name is Larry Goldstein, I live in
20 Mount Kisco, formerly I lived in New Rochelle,
21 and Mount Vernon. I'm here to defend you in
22 comparison with the so-called independent
23 redistricting commission. A common place of
24 legislation--at least to an outsider, is that you
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3 If there was going to be a law to repeal
4 the Freedom of Information Act, there's a good
5 chance that the title would be, "How To Improve
6 Open Government." And that's what we're dealing
7 with, with this independent redistricting
8 commission. It's consistently at its core, a
9 denominating unit which has eight members, four
10 of them appointed by the minority and majority of
11 both houses of legislature. The remaining four,
12 in theory--two democrats and two republicans,
13 would be appointed by the governor; which is to
14 say that the governor gets to choose his--which
15 political opponents he wants to have against his
16 party. Nice work if you can get it.
17 The alternative is you. You are
18 bipartisan. You are half democrat, half
19 republican. We've got a balanced system. The
20 risk of going to overly partisan districting, you
21 can look at in district's--Senate district's 34
22 and 36. District 34 snakes from the Bronx into
23 Westchester, down into the Bronx, and then at
24 Riker's Island. And in the middle of it, going--
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3 sometimes it seems like it's like two blocks
4 wide, is Senate district 36--also from
5 Westchester to the Bronx.
6 I appreciate all of the concerns about
7 minority representation and so on, but when you
8 look at this one, it's very much Eldridge
9 Sherry's gerrymander.
10 The second objection to this independent
11 commission is a series of legal issues. We went
12 back--I remember that 60--there were three years
13 in the '60s in which we kept having to vote for
14 the State legislature, because of the WMCA case.
15 I was a young kid at the time, and my
16 first vote for a State legislator, as far as I
17 can recall, was Whitney North Seymour, which
18 probably dates me, but it's--we don't need that
19 again. And there are legal issues involved with
20 this so-called independent redistricting
21 commission. We may put ourselves back in
22 violation of the federal law--as we found in the
23 WMCA case. We also, because we're changing the
24 process legislatively--rather than
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3 violating the state constitution.
4 The prudent way around that, of course,
5 would be to amend the Constitution, find an
6 appropriate alternative redistricting plan if you
7 think there should be one--but this one, as
8 proposed, isn't it. So to avoid, please, more,
9 more circumstances of Senate district 34 and 36--
10 keep up the good work; focus, and do what you can
11 to avoid that quote-unquote independent district.
12 Thank you.
13 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: In--in your opinion,
14 Mr. Goldstein--and you raised the constitutional
15 concerns that I wish you, for the record, would
16 elaborate on what you believe those
17 constitutional concerns to be.
18 MR. GOLDSTEIN: You're talking about at
19 the state or at the federal level?
20 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: At the state level.
21 MR. GOLDSTEIN: At the state level, it's
22 a legislative function. And--redistricting--
23 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: [Interposing]
24 According, according to the New York State
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3 MR. GOLDSTEIN: As I understand it, yes,
4 that's, that's your job. That's what you're paid
5 for, is to redistrict as one of your functions.
6 And if you delegate too much of that, that
7 becomes a risk.
8 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Any questions,
9 members of the panel? Thank you, very, very
10 much.
11 MR. GOLDSTEIN: My pleasure.
12 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: John McEneny.
13 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: We are joined
14 also by Assemblyman Robert Castelli, from here in
15 Westchester County. Thank you. Thank you for
16 coming.
17 ROBERT CASTELLI, MEMBER, 89TH DISTRICT:
18 Good morning, gentlemen. Welcome to the city of
19 White Plains. As some of you may know, you met
20 my colleague, Amy Paulin, earlier. We share the
21 city of White Plains here.
22 My district--the 89th Assembly district,
23 is the most diverse district in the state of New
24 York. And by that I mean simply this--I share
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3 Fortune 500 companies. I have three colleges,
4 one medical school, two state prisons, one of the
5 largest private airports in the country in White
6 Plains Airport, and yet I have a multiplicity of
7 farms and low-income housing.
8 It is at once both one of the wealthiest
9 districts in the state of New York, and yet in
10 some cases--especially here in the city of White
11 Plains and in Mount Kisco, one of the most
12 diverse; and unfortunately in the area with more
13 than 4,700 rent control or rent stabilized
14 apartments, and nine--I'm sorry, 38 different
15 rent control or rent stabilized housing, so you
16 can understand that it is a very diverse
17 district, and it is my great honor to represent
18 this.
19 I was elected in a special election in
20 2010. I was re-elected subsequently in November.
21 It is my pleasure to serve everybody in this
22 district--republicans, democrats, conservative,
23 independents and nons alike.
24 This district was gerrymandered about
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3 attention. And in one of the strange ironies of
4 politics, it wasn't gerrymandered for the
5 advantage of one party over another, but more-so
6 to give one person a competitive advantage in the
7 same party over another, and that person had been
8 replaced, and I have then replaced that
9 individual here.
10 So it was not so much a political move--
11 republicans versus democrats--but it was
12 gerrymandered, nonetheless. My purpose in
13 appearing before you today, gentlemen, is to
14 simply ask you and plead for you to engage in
15 this process in both a bipartisan and an
16 independent fashion.
17 We have--for the most part, and I most
18 especially have indicated a desire to see
19 independent redistricting. Within the confines
20 that exist within the parameters of this
21 committee, and our current constitution, I
22 believe--and I have faith in my colleagues on
23 both sides of the aisle, that we are capable and
24 can do this in a bipartisan, fair and independent
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3 So it is my cause and my case, to
4 present on behalf of the people in my district--
5 that plea to you for independent redistricting.
6 This district is fine, I enjoy serving it. It is
7 my great personal pleasure to do so. Should you
8 choose to redistrict it, it would be very hard to
9 do so, and if it were redistricted, I would
10 submit to you that if it went back to the
11 previous way it was redistricted--it probably was
12 at that point about a 50-50 district, if you look
13 at the republican-democratic registration, so it
14 would not give me any competitive advantage one
15 way or the other.
16 But I would ask you, gentleman, and I, I
17 know your time is precious so I will finish
18 speaking now, to please just consider doing this
19 in a bipartisan and independent manner. And if
20 there's any way I, or we in the 89th Assembly
21 district, can help you, it would my--be my great
22 pleasure and honor to do this. So I thank you
23 for your time and your efforts on all our behalf.
24 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you,
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3 panel? Thank you very much.
4 MR. CASTELLI: Thank you.
5 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Jean Johnson. Jean
6 Johnson? Sharon Lindsey. Good morning.
7 SHARON LINDSEY, PRESIDENT, WESTCHESTER
8 COUNTY LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS: I'm Sharon
9 Lindsey. I'm President of the Westchester County
10 League of Women Voters, and I welcome the
11 opportunity to stand here before you and thank
12 you for your service. However, I have submitted
13 a detailed, written report which I left copies of
14 outside--which I'm not going to bore you by re-
15 reading. You can just accept that for the
16 record. But--
17 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: [Interposing] Would
18 you, please, sorry for the interruption.
19 MS. LINDSEY: Sure.
20 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Did you say you had
21 written testimony you were submitting?
22 MS. LINDSEY: Yes, yes.
23 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: I do not have a copy
24 of that, in other--
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3 copies at the front desk. But, if. . .
4 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: It could. . .can you
5 communicate that? Thank you.
6 MS. LINDSEY: I have--I have additional
7 copies--
8 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: [Interposing] We'll
9 get one.
10 MS. LINDSEY: --with me, so if there's a
11 problem.
12 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: We'll get one at the
13 desk.
14 MS. LINDSEY: I can certainly give them
15 to you, or forward them to you. The written
16 statement, which I'm, I'm not going to torture
17 you with reading in its entirety because I value
18 your time--it sets forth the league's firm
19 conviction that an independent commission, and
20 not yourselves--and certainly no insult intended-
21 -but you are legislatively controlled and should
22 be doing redistricting in New York State.
23 Whether it is the one Governor Cuomo
24 proposed, or it's another one--is irrelevant to
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3 the complaints that I set forth in the written
4 statement. The League, as I'm sure you're aware,
5 is a nonpartisan organization that has
6 historically stood for fair and equitable
7 representation of all voters. A legislatively
8 controlled and somewhat non-transparent
9 redistricting process that exists at the moment--
10 and I'm very happy to see you having these
11 hearings now, but I think we've heard a lot of
12 testimony about weird districts that have been
13 carved out in the past to create competitive
14 advantages, etcetera.
15 It--there is--there is a perception that
16 this process is tailored to protect incumbents
17 and discourage competition. And thereby,
18 frankly, effectively disenfranchise voters. I
19 note that in the 2010 election, New York State
20 ranked 47th in overall voter participation in
21 that election.
22 Clearly, that's not a goal. And I think
23 it affects--it impacts the decision-making that
24 you who are elected engage in when you are
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3 line, I think, is that when left to themselves--I
4 think legislators tend to redistrict in their own
5 interests, and not necessarily in the interest of
6 the general electorate.
7 And frankly, with very little meaningful
8 public access to the process by which this
9 occurs, the data that is relied on--the League
10 would urge that the legislators to - - process,
11 if at all possible this year, and establish an
12 independent commission to conduct state-wide
13 redistricting.
14 I think the time has come, on behalf of
15 the League, to restore more legitimacy to our
16 electoral process. Thank you very much for your
17 time and I appreciate your consideration.
18 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much,
19 and your entire written testimony, which I--did
20 appear, since you've began speaking--to me, will
21 be part of the official record.
22 MS. LINDSEY: Thank you.
23 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: I just have one
24 question. I don't know if you heard Mr.
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3 you, regarding the constitution of the state of
4 New York, and--
5 MS. LINDSEY: [Interposing] I did hear
6 them. I was surprised by them, but I really
7 don't have a comment with regard to that.
8 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: It--I think that--you
9 have no comment regarding the--that issue--
10 regarding the constitution?
11 MS. LINDSEY: That is--that is correct.
12 I will be happy to look into it and forward you a
13 comment, if you would prefer that.
14 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much.
15 MS. LINDSEY: You're welcome. My
16 pleasure. Thank you.
17 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Liam McLaughlin.
18 LIAM MCLAUGHLIN, 2010 CANDIDATE FOR NYS
19 SENATE: Chairman Nozzolio, Chairman, McEneny,
20 members of the Commission, it's very good to see
21 you here today, and thank you so much for coming
22 to Westchester.
23 I would like to see a fair and
24 bipartisan redistricting plan that encourages
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3 last year for the State Senate, because I
4 believed that people deserve a choice. Myself
5 and Bob Cohen ran strong in close races and the
6 voters in those two districts enjoyed exciting,
7 competitive races, where the issues were openly
8 debated in the public--which is what good
9 government is all about.
10 Both parties should have a chance at
11 victory, and please draft lines that accomplish
12 that. I also think it's very important to break
13 the deadlock that is in the State Senate, that
14 led to the dysfunction and changing leadership.
15 It makes no sense to have an even number
16 of Senators. It must be an odd number in order
17 to break ties going forward. It's my belief that
18 under the constitution, the number should change
19 from 62 to 63, and I strongly recommend that. We
20 all saw what the deadlock did to the state, and
21 that can't be allowed to happen again in the
22 future.
23 During my campaign for State Senate last
24 year, I signed Mayor Ed Koch's Pledge to Support
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3 electoral lines and end the bi--the partisan
4 gerrymandering that puts political incumbency
5 over the public interest. And that was the
6 actual language from the pledge. I still support
7 an independent commission for redistricting, but
8 this substantial change in state law must be done
9 properly.
10 At no point during the discussions about
11 the pledge last year, did anyone mention any
12 proposal from Andrew Cuomo. It was never part of
13 the debate. It was my intention, when I took
14 that pledge--it would require an amendment to the
15 New York State Constitution, to implement the
16 changes in state law that would create the
17 independent redistricting commission, since the
18 State Constitution contains the actual text for
19 the redistricting in our state.
20 This past March, the New York State
21 Senate passed a bill to create the Independent
22 Redistricting Commission through an amendment to
23 the state constitution. As an attorney, it's my
24 belief that that's how it must be done. I
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3 media, that the senators who voted for this
4 constitutional amendment somehow violated the
5 Koch pledge. And those, those accusations, I
6 believe, are completely politically motivated,
7 untrue and misleading.
8 In my opinion, the passage of the
9 legislation by the senators fully complies with
10 the pledge. Further, upon my review of Governor
11 Cuomo's alleged independent commission, it's
12 slanted against the republican party--and I
13 cannot imagine how any republican elected
14 official could be expected to vote for
15 legislation that has the potential to do
16 tremendous partisan damage to the republican
17 party.
18 The state constitution has mandated for
19 decades that redistricting is performed by the
20 state legislature, and the Cuomo bill is a clear
21 power grab by the Governor, in violation of the
22 checks and balances, and separation of powers.
23 The Governor plays too large a role in
24 his redistricting legislation. I still support
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3 such commission must be truly fair to both major
4 parties--just like the fairness I see in the task
5 force here before me. With an equal number of
6 democrats and republicans or--as required by the
7 constitutional amendment passed in March by the
8 State Senate--with only five members and no bias
9 against either party. I thank you for the
10 opportunity to address you.
11 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much,
12 Mr. McLaughlin. Questions from the panel?
13 Senator Dilan.
14 SENATOR DILAN: Yes, just like a
15 previous witness who testified that perhaps the
16 Senate should be 63--again, what would be the
17 justification for increasing the number of the
18 New York State Senate?
19 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, first of all, I
20 believe that under the applicable state law and
21 the constitution, it is allowable to go to 63,
22 but more practically--
23 SENATOR DILAN: [Interposing] Is it
24 allowed to go to 65?
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3 it would be, but I--honestly, I'd have to take a
4 look at that issue. But I, I think it should be
5 an odd number, regardless--
6 SENATOR DILAN: [Interposing] Why not
7 61?
8 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, I think 61
9 practically would, would be a real problem,
10 because then you'd be eliminating a district--
11 potentially eliminating a sitting Senator, or a--
12 or a currently existing Senatorial district, so I
13 think the plan to go to 63 would, would make a
14 lot more sense. And cause less chaos.
15 SENATOR DILAN: But are you basing it
16 on, on any, any formula at all? Or is it you are
17 picking a number out of a hat?
18 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, it's not picking
19 it out of a hat, it's the, the closest number--I
20 think that going down would be a problem, because
21 you'd be eliminating a, a senator, and then the
22 allegations would be that it was politically
23 motivated no matter who it was.
24 So, therefore, by going up you could
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3 population and create a, a new district. To me,
4 that's much more palatable, I believe, to the
5 public. Having been an elected representative, I
6 think that that's something that the public would
7 understand a little more easily than--all of the
8 sudden, their elected official is now gone.
9 SENATOR DILAN: Now, you're aware that
10 in the constitution of the State of New York,
11 there is a method for coming up with the number
12 and there is a formula, and I believe that we
13 should follow that formula. And somehow I
14 believe that this Task Force needs to make that
15 formula public so the public can also judge for
16 themself what that number should actually be.
17 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Certainly. The more
18 information that's out there for the public,
19 obviously, the better.
20 SENATOR DILAN: Okay, one more question.
21 You, you mentioned that some newspaper articles
22 made partisan remarks in terms of members signing
23 the Koch pledge. Is it a fact that many of the
24 members did sign the Koch pledge?
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3 SENATOR DILAN: In the State Senate?
4 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Absolutely, and I
5 don't--and I believe that what they've done has--
6 is in fact honoring the pledge.
7 SENATOR DILAN: How is that?
8 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The Governor can't, on
9 his own, come up with a commission. The
10 redistricting is dictated by the state
11 constitution.
12 SENATOR DILAN: But my question is that
13 in the election last year, many members led the
14 public to believe that they were going to honor
15 the Koch pledge.
16 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: [Interposing] And I--
17 and I--
18 SENATOR DILAN: [Interposing] Then the
19 election is over, and all of the sudden, the
20 pledge means nothing.
21 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, Senator, I--with
22 all due respect, I don't believe the pledge means
23 nothing. I believe that they are honoring the
24 pledge. It must be done by a Constitutional
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3 Governor.
4 SENATOR DILAN: Well, I think that that
5 was perhaps a political ploy--
6 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: [Interposing] I know,
7 I'm sorry.
8 SENATOR DILAN: When they led the public
9 to believe that they were going to institute a
10 independent commission immediately, and by coming
11 back and introducing a bill that puts it off for
12 ten years--I think is not what the public was
13 expecting last year.
14 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, I--well, what the
15 public was expecting and what legally has to
16 happen may be two different things.
17 Unfortunately, the laws the--in this state
18 require it to be done a certain way.
19 SENATOR DILAN: All right, then I guess
20 at the end of the day the public will be the
21 judge of that.
22 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I guess that's true.
23 SENATOR DILAN: Right, thank you.
24 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Sure.
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3 Dilan. But, Mr. McLaughlin, I, I asked Mr.
4 Goldstein and Ms. Lindsey this question regarding
5 the constitutional amendment, and why that is
6 relevant. You mentioned it in your testimony.
7 Would you further elaborate on that issue?
8 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well since this issue
9 is, in fact, dictated by the constitution--it
10 must be done by a constitutional amendment. It
11 cannot be done by the Governor proposing a
12 commission, or, or anything of the sort. The
13 power is strictly given to the legislature, under
14 the state constitution. Therefore, it's--the
15 legislature's power cannot be taken away by the
16 Governor, and it must be done by amendment.
17 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: That the issue of the
18 map--I got kind of lost as you were discussing
19 the selection and your view relative to the panel
20 decided--to be decided--would you go through that
21 again, please?
22 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I'm sorry, could you
23 explain?
24 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: The--I think you said
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3 objections to the method in which either the
4 panel was selected, or the ultimate result of who
5 would be on the--so the independent redistricting
6 panel.
7 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, I think that the
8 Governor, in his proposal, is playing too heavy a
9 role in it. Again, this is something that is
10 specifically and uniquely given--a power that's
11 given to the legislature. By the governor's
12 proposal, he's playing way too much a hand in it,
13 by the appointments that he's making. And I
14 think it's something that the legislature needs
15 to, to be handling.
16 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much.
17 Senator Dilan.
18 SENATOR DILAN: Yes. I don't believe
19 that the Governor has appointed anyone to any
20 panel at this point because the state legislature
21 has not passed his program bill, so therefore he
22 has not made any appointments that I'm aware of.
23 But a follow-up to the constitutional
24 question. If the legislature so chose, could
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3 own? And if they passed the legislation to
4 create an independent commission to redraw the
5 lines, can the legislature do that?
6 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Just to your first
7 point, I don't think that I said that the
8 Governor made the appointments, and if I did that
9 was--
10 SENATOR DILAN: [Interposing] All right,
11 I thought that's what I heard, yeah.
12 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: As his proposed--his
13 proposal would be to have--
14 SENATOR DILAN: [Interposing] Okay.
15 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Could the legislature
16 give up that power? I guess they could, but
17 honestly I would have to take a closer look at
18 that. That, in and of itself, might be cause for
19 an amendment because it would be a shift in power
20 between the executive and the legislative--
21 SENATOR DILAN: [Interposing] Well, I
22 think if the legislature chose to pass
23 legislation to give up that right, I think they
24 can do that. And if someone did not like it,
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3 challenging this Task Force with respect to the
4 2000 Prisoner Law that could--that the public has
5 the right to take that to court also.
6 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The--point I'm getting
7 at, Senator, is in the city of Yonkers, when I
8 was on the city council, if there was a, a
9 diminution of powers between the legislature,
10 they, they could not just do that on their own.
11 They could not unilaterally--well, not
12 unilaterally, but they could not give the power
13 over to the executive. That would have had to
14 have been done by referendum, and therefore I
15 don't know if there's a similar mechanism in--
16 SENATOR DILAN: [Interposing] Well, just
17 one more clarification. They're not giving it to
18 the executive, they're giving it to an
19 independent panel.
20 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Yeah, well, giving
21 their powers over to anybody else--they're
22 elected to do the job. If the powers are under
23 the state constitution, I don't know that they're
24 allowed to just give that power over to somebody
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3 SENATOR DILAN: Well, I, I think that if
4 we chose to pass legislation, I think it's
5 possible--just like we do in many cases, with
6 authorities. Thank you.
7 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Thank you, Senator. I
8 just--I haven't researched that issue.
9 SENATOR DILAN: Thank you.
10 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Sure.
11 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: And I--in concluding,
12 are there any other questions to members of the
13 panel? I'd just like to say it was very
14 interesting to hear your testimony and the
15 testimony of Mr. Goldstein regarding the
16 constitution.
17 We haven't heard--I, I believe that the-
18 -that becomes too--it's an inconvenient truth for
19 others--for many, and on many different issues,
20 in terms of the state constitution. And I, I
21 appreciate you bringing it to light on behalf of
22 the Task Force as part of the record. Thank you
23 very much for your testimony.
24 MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And, and thank you
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3 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: Thank you.
4 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Mr.--I don't know if
5 it's a mister or misses Jan Degenshein? It's a
6 mister, I apologize in advance for likely
7 mispronouncing your last name, but thank you very
8 much for being here. Would you, for the record,
9 help us in its pronunciation, sir?
10 JAN DEGENSHEIN, CHAIRMAN, ROCKLAND
11 BUSINESS ASSOCIATION, PRESIDENT, DEGENSHEIN
12 ARCHITECTS: You did--you did get the gender
13 right. I am Jan Degenshein, President of
14 Degenshein Architects in South Nyack, New York.
15 I also chair the Rockland Business Association
16 under 2010 as the Platinum level Chamber of the
17 Year by the Business Counsel of New York State.
18 I would like to thank you, Senator
19 Nozzolio, and Assemblyman McEneny, for co-
20 chairing this important Task Force and for
21 holding this hearing in the lower Hudson Valley.
22 Honorable representative, ladies and gentleman,
23 let me state up front--we view the current
24 congressional districting process--redistricting
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3 correct a gross injustice imposed upon the people
4 of Rockland County, in the adoption on June 5,
5 2002, of the legislation that established our
6 current congressional district.
7 Up until that time, Rockland--the
8 smallest land-mass county outside the boroughs of
9 New York City, composed--along with a small
10 portion of Orange County, the former 20th
11 congressional district. And for 30 years, we had
12 one congressional representative, the great
13 statesman, Ben Gilman. Our current
14 representatives, notably Nita Lowey and
15 Congressman Elliot Engel rep--carry on in that
16 very fine tradition.
17 The legislation of 2002 carved up
18 Rockland County into three districts. And one of
19 those districts we account for only 4% of the
20 constituency, effectively rendering our voting
21 interests impotent in that district. We did not
22 deserve the disrespect shown us at that time.
23 Rockland and Orange had experienced
24 population increases. Our districts should have
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3 been made purely around political considerations
4 rather than geographic balance.
5 As in 2002, the State of New York has
6 lost population, and will lose two more
7 Congressional seats. Like 2002, the districts
8 with the greatest loss should be the two to lose
9 representation. Unlike 2002, we trust this will
10 be accomplished.
11 No emotion, no politicizing, no
12 protection of a favorite son or daughter, no
13 abuse of power--just clean, cogent application of
14 the intent of the process. And what a pleasant
15 surprise--with this approach we find
16 justification to reunite Rockland County, and
17 return our constituents to a single Congressional
18 representative, a single Congressional champion
19 to rep--represent all of us equally, since 70% of
20 Rockland County presently lies in one district--
21 this is not a far stretch.
22 Since the last census, Rockland has
23 experienced an 8.7% increase in population, from
24 just under 287,000 to just under 312,000. And we
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3 characteristics pertinent to the redistricting
4 process. For example, we had a 16.6% increase in
5 the number of 45 to 64 year olds. A 23.6%
6 increase in seniors age 65 and over. A 9.1%
7 increase in the number of children--those under
8 18, and a 67.2% increase in Hispanic-Latino
9 population, also a 7.1% increase in total
10 households.
11 For all of the above, I trust that you
12 will give the most serious consideration to our
13 request, and again I thank you for conducting
14 these hearings.
15 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much.
16 Any questions of the panel? Hearing none, we
17 thank you very much for your testimony.
18 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: If, if I might
19 caution on the question of mathematics. If
20 districts are coming up, and one is short, it's
21 going to have to go over into the next district
22 to take people to meet the constitutional
23 requirement. There's not one district in the
24 State of New York representing us in Congress,
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3 If we look at ourselves with tunnel vision, then
4 it's easy to say, "This is what should happen."
5 But we can't have population falling off the map
6 on Long Island, and we can't have them dropping
7 off the map in Canada. It all has to match. And
8 sometimes it's not neat. But we can't judge from
9 the center with tunnel vision and forget the fact
10 that the district next to the--next to us is
11 light and needs people to survive--at all. And
12 another one might be heavy--far too many and it
13 will have to flow into an adjoining district.
14 This is a complicated, complicated
15 issue. But when things do make sense, we
16 certainly try to do them. But math does not
17 always allow us to do it, nor does the Voting
18 Rights Act, or the constitutional requirements.
19 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you,
20 Assemblyman. The minority leader of the
21 Westchester County legislator--legislature Jim
22 Maisano indicates to me that the Chairman of the
23 County Legislature, the Honorable Kenneth
24 Jenkins, is available to testify. Thank you,
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3 on behalf of all the members of the Task Force,
4 the courtesies you've extended to us in using
5 this beautiful chamber for this hearing--we
6 appreciate very, very much. And thank you for
7 being here today.
8 HONORABLE KENNETH JENKINS, CHAIRMAN,
9 WESTCHESTER COUNTY BOARD OF LEGISLATORS: Thank
10 you, Senator. It certainly is a privilege for us
11 to have you here in the chambers of Westchester
12 County. And, and certainly to you, Senator
13 Nozzolio, Assemblyman McEn--oh, excuse me,
14 McEneny, and Honorable members of the Task Force
15 on Demographic Research and Reapportionment--and
16 especially my colleague here on the County Board-
17 -minority leader Jim Maisano. We want to say
18 that we are so happy that you are here.
19 So good morning, I'm Ken Jenkins, the
20 Chairman of the Westchester County Board of
21 Legislators, and again for you choosing
22 Westchester as one of the sites for these very
23 important public hearings--we are so grateful for
24 that. As you have seen here--at least in
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3 the redistricting process, and I certainly fully
4 understand the difficult and important task
5 that's in front of you. Trying to balance all of
6 those variables, as we are going through this
7 process, is extremely difficult, and we
8 understand the challenges that face before you.
9 Here in Westchester, we were able to
10 accomplish our redistricting process with a
11 minimal movement of less than 5% of the entire
12 population of Westchester, which is just about a
13 million people. And more importantly--with no
14 lawsuits. We compare this to our friends in
15 Nassau County, whose redistricting plan is in
16 litigation, and where over 45% of the population
17 had shifted into other districts.
18 And again, understanding that the
19 numbers have to match up, and it's very difficult
20 to do. In considering reapportionment for the
21 State Legislature, please consider compactness--
22 pursuant to New York State constitutional
23 requirements. In Westchester, we have three
24 State Senators that cross into our neighboring
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3 Bronx, one in Putman County. And under no
4 circumstances should that increase.
5 We certainly can see with the numbers in
6 balancing that we should be able to do that. For
7 the State Senate, there should also be a
8 consideration for insuring that the body is an
9 odd number, by either going up to 63 or down--
10 back to 61 Senators.
11 I believe the changing demographics
12 identified in the 2010 census must impact the
13 State and Congressional redistricting.
14 Legislative districts must be redrawn or must be
15 drawn to provide minority communities an equal
16 opportunity to elect representatives of their
17 choice.
18 It appears that there is an opportunity
19 to create some districts based on shared
20 interests, including social, linguistic, and
21 other factors--especially in those populations of
22 higher densities.
23 And finally, while I appreciate the
24 opportunity to provide comment on the
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3 an opportunity to comment on a draft proposal,
4 where specific concerns could be identified and
5 subsequently addressed by your Honorable
6 Committee. I understand--and I know firsthand,
7 that New York census data for 2010 was delayed by
8 several weeks, and I am positive that this
9 impacted the ability of this Honorable Committee
10 to have a draft--presentation before us today.
11 Certainly again, I know the difficult
12 work that lays before all of you--the members of
13 your staff, and certainly the people of New York
14 as we go through this difficult process where
15 people all try to identify and protect their own
16 communities, but I know you'll be able to be up
17 to the task of balancing and doing it fairly.
18 Thanks again for the opportunity to
19 speak this morning--and again, Senators, Co-
20 chairs, and Assemblyman, we really appreciate
21 your being here this morning.
22 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you, Chairman.
23 Are there any members of the panel wish to, to
24 speak? Mr. Hedges.
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3 information, I think it is the intention of this
4 group to actually present draft plans at a point
5 in the future. But prior to putting together a
6 draft plan, we wanted to hear from people, and
7 give people an opportunity to shape those draft
8 plans before we came back to the public and said,
9 "Now that there's a draft plan in front of you,
10 what do you think?"
11 And so, I'm expecting that we'll be back
12 and we'll give you that opportunity, and
13 hopefully those drafts will reflect some of the
14 ideas that people have advanced in these
15 hearings--prior to the drafting put together.
16 MR. JENKINS: Thank you, Mr. Hedges.
17 And it--certainly you are welcome to come back
18 here to our chambers, and I'm sure Mr. Maisano
19 will make sure that we have an opportunity for
20 that, and we'd love to have you back.
21 MR. HEDGES: Thank you.
22 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Chairman Jenkins,
23 before you leave, thank you again for your
24 testimony. Earlier today, we heard from one of
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3 that this Task Force heard discussed in upstate
4 larger counties, like Onondaga and Monroe.
5 Westchester's challenge is in
6 implementing a redistricting plan under the best
7 of circumstances--was told that it would take us
8 here in Westchester at least 90 days to do the
9 redistricting formatting--a logistical formatting
10 for the local county legislative districts.
11 I asked the, the Commissioner of the
12 Board of Elections what type of similar process
13 would there be--or challenge would there be for
14 the mapping of the Congressional State
15 legislative lines, and coupled with a potential
16 June primary, which would compact the entire
17 process. We don't want this redistricting to be
18 yet another unfunded mandate to county
19 government, and that--do you have similar
20 concerns regarding that objective and those
21 challenges?
22 MR. JENKINS: Absolutely. Because,
23 again, when you have the, the time frames as are
24 being compressed, especially with the potential
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3 issues for us trying to have the staff available
4 at the Board of Elections, it would cause us to
5 wrap up significantly the number of our panel at
6 the Board of Elections to be able to get the data
7 in.
8 For us and our redistricting process
9 this year, we were not able to have our lines
10 drawn in time. We, we drew them in time, but
11 they were not in the Board of Elections system in
12 time for the petition process. So, basically we
13 ran on both sets of lines, as far as petitioning
14 was going on.
15 To do this by June--and in Westchester
16 we also have March elections with village
17 elections. That creates an additional--an
18 additional complication that would also, again,
19 cause us to have additional funds be spent--in
20 order to make sure that the lines were input and
21 people were ready to be able to walk petitions at
22 the earliest possible moment.
23 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Well, that is a very
24 important message, and I appreciate you echoing
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3 task force--and Assemblyman McEneny, I know,
4 shares my concerns that that's a big reason why
5 we began this process, because we are certainly
6 under the gun time wise here.
7 Thank you for your cooperation, your
8 support--again, the use of this beautiful
9 chamber, and look forward to seeing you--working
10 with you in the future.
11 MR. JENKINS: Senator, we look forward
12 to working with you. Thank you, Assemblyman,
13 thank you Senator.
14 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Zelma--Zulema Bre--
15 Blai--Zulema Blair [phonetic? Steve Suey
16 [phonetic]? Steve Suey? Betsy MALCOM? Betsy--
17 Betsy Malcom.
18 BETSY MALCOM, ORGANIZING COMMITTEE, ACT
19 NOW: Well, thank you for letting me speak--and
20 please excuse my lack of experience in public
21 speaking.
22 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Well, thank you for
23 being here, and would you be so kind, so everyone
24 can hear you, please put the microphone as close
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3 MS. MALCOM: Thank you. Redistricting
4 happens every ten years, following the census,
5 because legislative districts are supposed to be
6 responsive to changes in the electorate. "One
7 person, one vote" is fundamental to our
8 democracy. However, here in New York, a history
9 of gerrymandering has allowed elected officials
10 to choose the voters who will keep them in power,
11 denying citizens the right to a fairly contested
12 election. Incumbents in a legislature of 96% re-
13 election rate--no wonder voters don't bother to
14 vote.
15 In the 2010 election, New York State was
16 47th among the states in voter participation.
17 New Yorkers clearly feel that partisan interests
18 have prevented competitive elections, leaving
19 them essentially disenfranchised. So why bother
20 to vote? I'm part of a growing course demanding
21 that an independent, non-partisan panel draw New
22 York's legislative districts.
23 The LATFOR committee, as currently
24 constituted, is intrinsically suspect since it
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3 conflict of interest. That's not saying any of
4 you intend to be dishonest, but I feel that this
5 is an inherent problem. The fact that they
6 initially said that they might disregard the
7 current law on prison-based gerrymandering adds
8 to the appearance of bias and the negative
9 public--
10 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: [Interposing]
11 Objection. That is 100% untrue. We never said
12 we would not follow the law--ever. It's all on
13 tape and you can watch it on the LATFOR website.
14 At no time did LATFOR say that they would not
15 follow the law. We said we did not have the
16 available information at one time. We're--we've
17 been gathering it for some time. We have never
18 said--and I was very disappointed when my own
19 hometown newspaper said we had reversed a stand.
20 That has never been the stance of LATFOR. And I
21 believe people have perpetuated that rumor to
22 discredit LATFOR for their own particular
23 political agenda.
24 MS. MALCOM: Well, I have read it in
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3 SENATOR DILAN: A point of--Mr.
4 Chairman?
5 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: A point of order from
6 Senator Dilan. What is your point, Senator?
7 SENATOR DILAN: I would--my, my point is
8 here that we keep referring to political agendas,
9 and I don't know where that comes from. But just
10 to clarify the record, there was--it was not
11 clear, with respect to the 2010 prisoner law,
12 what the position of this panel was. However, I
13 believe last week up in Albany, both co-
14 chairpersons did publically state that the
15 intention is to follow the law.
16 MS. MALCOM: I understand that.
17 SENATOR DILAN: And we do appreciate
18 that.
19 MS. MALCOM: And if you see in my next
20 sent--
21 SENATOR DILAN: [Interposing] Is that
22 correct, Mr. Chairman?
23 MS. MALCOM: I said--
24 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: [Interposing] If, if
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3 to public speaking. I--
4 [Laughter]
5 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: I know you weren't
6 involved in public speaking before, and I know--I
7 apologize for this interruption. As a member of
8 the committee, and just before you begin, it is a
9 very important issue that you touched upon. I
10 think Senator Dilan--Assemblyman McEneny
11 attempted to clarify the record. Senator Dilan
12 is attempting to clarify the record, and it is an
13 important record to clarify. Their comments are
14 both--are both made.
15 I would also like to make a comment,
16 that I understand both of my colleague's
17 comments. What I didn't understand was a
18 characterization that I said something that I
19 never said. And that that wasn't made by any of
20 the members of this panel, it was made by
21 interpreters of that--of my comments.
22 I read this morning a comment where I
23 was indicated in, in some public blog that I had
24 made a statement at a prior hearing--or a prior
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3 counting of, of prisoners and the obeyance of the
4 law. And I was shocked. And I hope tomorrow,
5 when you go home and read about this tomorrow,
6 that you don't--aren't quoted as saying that
7 you're totally in favor of what LATFOR is doing,
8 and that you are, in effect, saying something
9 that you never said.
10 So I think that's what Assemblyman
11 McEneny is, is trying to clarify. I was shocked
12 that, in effect, I would be quoted as saying
13 something that I never said. With that, LATFOR--
14 let me reiterate the position--as articulated by
15 the members, as articulated by us last time at
16 our hearing in Albany--that every member of this
17 panel is fully committed to obeying the laws of
18 the land as they exist; federal law, especially
19 the Voting Rights Act, state law, and state--the
20 state constitution. We cannot reiterate that
21 enough. But we appreciate that--as those giving
22 testimony for the record recognize the fact that
23 this Task Force has fully intended as we move
24 forward to comply with every nuance of every law
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3 MS. MALCOM: Well, I appreciate that
4 that's clear. I do appreciate that. Okay, the
5 legislature must go back to Albany for a special
6 session and enact an independent, nonpartisan
7 redistricting process that will return both the
8 reality and the public perception of integrity to
9 our elections. Only then will they truly
10 represent the nearly two-thirds of voters of both
11 parties who overwhelming said in a 2010
12 Quinnipiac poll that they support redistricting
13 reforms before the 2012 elections.
14 61 of 62 state senators and 123 of 150
15 assembly members have indicated support for some
16 kind of independent commission for redistricting,
17 and yet the legislature has held no vote on the
18 issue--or at least the state senate has held no
19 vote on the issue. Instead, we hear that there's
20 not enough time for an independent commission to
21 do its job, or that a constitutional amendment
22 will be sufficient. Neither of these assertions
23 is accurate.
24 Switching to an independent commission
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3 is no excuse for act--for inaction on such an
4 important issue as redistricting reform. Waiting
5 for a constitutional amendment would mean that
6 New Yorkers would live with suspect gerrymandered
7 lines for ten years, which is too long to wait
8 for our votes to fully count.
9 A constitutional amendment is a good
10 idea, but it's not a substitute for an
11 independent commission now. New York's current
12 system has produced districts so ludicrous that
13 one--senate district 51 has been nicknamed
14 Abraham Lincoln riding on a vacuum cleaner. The
15 60th senatorial district consists of two areas in
16 two different counties that are more than a mile
17 apart, and cities including Buffalo are bisected.
18 Districts have been drawn to exclude specific
19 political rivals of the incumbent, and it would
20 be funny if it wasn't so sad how the political
21 process has distorted our elections.
22 Districts should be compact, contiguous,
23 and keep cities and other communities of interest
24 together without regard to voter registration or
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3 It's time to restore honesty and good sense to
4 the districting process by enacting true
5 redistricting reform now. Thank you.
6 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: Do you
7 support--oh, I'm sorry Senator Dilan. Did you
8 have a question? The--do you support Governor
9 Cuomo's alternative, which is the bill that's in
10 the assembly?
11 MS. MALCOM: I would support that, or I
12 would support any other similar scheme that would
13 make it genuinely independent.
14 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: Do you feel
15 that the terminology as to how districts are
16 drawn now is fair and honest? Any criticism--
17 MS. MALCOM: [Interposing] What
18 terminology are you--
19 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: [Interposing]
20 Well, the criticism you just gave, Abraham
21 Lincoln riding on a vacuum cleaner.
22 MS. MALCOM: I mean, I think you can
23 just look at these maps.
24 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: Exactly. Now,
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3 more elegant language, it is a glob of
4 communities along the Hudson Valley, and it has a
5 long shaft on top of it, which looks like an old
6 time stove pipe hat. And people who don't travel
7 in the Mohawk Valley, and perhaps have never been
8 there, refer to it as Lincoln's hat. That area--
9 I'm sure there are people out there who give no
10 benefit of the doubt and do no research, who say,
11 "Well probably somebody's brother-in-law is a
12 campaign manager who lives way up in the
13 Adirondacks wanted to be in the same district.
14 I'm sure that's it."
15 That stove pipe hat was drawn up 200
16 years ago. It's called Herkimer County. And
17 you'll notice with the governor's new Economic
18 Development Counsels he divided the state into
19 ten districts and, and as the Chairman Lieutenant
20 Governor Duffy, that some of these districts look
21 very good.
22 I don't know what independent board drew
23 those districts. But at any point, in that one,
24 there's that stove pipe hat, hat again. And the
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3 county lines that are over 200 years old--where
4 people have been relating to one another for many
5 generations--is one of the goals that you try to
6 reach out and keep. And not knowing what
7 Herkimer County looks like, and assuming that the
8 worst of political motivations drew the district
9 which embraced that county line, I don't think is
10 fair.
11 Are there examples of gerrymandering in
12 the state? Undoubtedly, there's no question that
13 lines favor one individual or one group here and
14 there, but the massive condemnation of every
15 district drawn in the state is something that I
16 think we have to be reasonable about. I am a
17 sponsor of the Governor's bill, as is Sheldon
18 Silver and a number of members in the Assembly.
19 I did not take former Mayor Koch's pledge. For
20 that, Mayor Plot--Koch referred to me and
21 campaigned against me as quote an enemy of the
22 people. I think one of the problem--then when I
23 went and sponsored the other bill, to my
24 embarrassment, I was listed as a hero of the
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3 I think one of the problems with this
4 country today, and its political world, is
5 extreme language and people drawing lines in the
6 sands--no matter what. And pre-judging what's--
7 what the other side wants to do. I think people
8 in both parties--individuals, people in and out
9 of government, people who are elected, those who
10 wish they were--all wish well for this country
11 and for this state.
12 And that particular map of Lincoln on a
13 vacuum cleaner, or Lincoln's hat--is an example
14 of an unfair judgment. And I--since it's in the
15 testimony, I felt that as a former enemy of the
16 people--now hero, according to Mayor Koch--that
17 kind of name calling we don't need, whether it's
18 for the--a district on the map or individuals.
19 MS. MALCOM: I don't want to indulge in
20 any name-calling, but I did hear a presentation
21 by someone who ran and lost for that district.
22 And in fact he was talking about how very
23 difficult it was even to run in that district
24 because of the huge distances covered and the
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3 organized in the optimal way, so--
4 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: [Interposing]
5 The--
6 MS. MALCOM: [Interposing] I do think
7 there are problems with that district, although I
8 don't know enough to speak about them in detail.
9 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: The, the issue
10 that the Senator mentioned earlier, and some of
11 the people out in Western New York--we have
12 actually gotten some very good citizen advice on
13 how districts should be drawn. And there's a
14 tendency to want to cluster urban districts
15 together, and there's a community of interest--we
16 had some good advice from the Chamber of Commerce
17 person who was saying try and keep to the SMN--SA
18 which is the economic district.
19 But what happens is, once you've done
20 that and everything's neat--someone is left with
21 a district like the district which has gone back
22 and forth, the former Congressman Sweeney,
23 Gillibrand, Murphy, Gibson district--the same
24 district that goes from Lake Placid down along
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3 down to Hyde Park, across the mountains to 20
4 miles from Binghamton and includes in a backwards
5 letter "C" the towns next to Cooperstown. Do
6 they have a community of interest? Yes, I
7 suppose they do, but it's ten counties. And it's
8 very, very difficult to campaign in--more
9 importantly, it's very difficult to manage for
10 constituent services.
11 So sometimes these districts--we can
12 make some that make tremendous sense, and people
13 in rural areas wind up being sacrificed with
14 these extraordinary sprawling districts. And our
15 congressional districts are going to be a
16 nightmare when they go from about 650 or 60,000
17 up to 7, 17, 707--it's going to be very difficult
18 to work them. But some of these things--when
19 you're in a rural area, that's the way it is.
20 MS. MALCOM: Thank you.
21 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you,
22 Assemblyman. Betsy, excuse me. That--there's
23 some questions from members of the panel.
24 Senator Dilan?
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3 to indicate I, like Assemblyman McEneny, did not
4 sign the pledge last year. I was also listed as
5 an "enemy." I, like Assemblyman McEneny, do
6 support the Governor's program bills. I also
7 introduced my own two bills, an independent
8 redistricting commission, and I also support the
9 Generis bill [phonetic], but I'm still an enemy
10 of the people. I don't understand that, but
11 that's not the point here.
12 What I'd just like to clarify, for the
13 record, again, on the 2010 prisoner law, and the
14 fact that the position of this panel is clear
15 that the intention is to follow the law. I think
16 it's very important that everyone be aware that
17 there are members of the New York State Senate
18 that have filed a lawsuit to overturn the law.
19 The name of the lawsuit is Little v. LATFOR. So
20 I know that there was some movement in court this
21 week also with respect to summary judgments and
22 also to motions being placed in the court.
23 So at the end of the day you might find
24 that in November or December the courts may rule
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3 land. If they do, I hope that this panel does
4 honor that ruling and move forward with the
5 prisoner count.
6 MS. MALCOM: Yes, I absolutely
7 understood that there is a lawsuit. And I
8 absolutely understood that in Scarsdale you were
9 very explicit that you were intending to obey the
10 law. Before that, I read in a number of places--
11 and it may have been inaccurate--that there was
12 some implication that since there was not
13 sufficient information that you were in--
14 intending to go by the old rules. I saw it as a
15 change in policy. If that's incorrect, I
16 apologize.
17 SENATOR DILAN: No, no, I was just
18 wanting to clarify the record that there is a
19 lawsuit with respect to the 2010 law. So you may
20 find that in December a court may prevent us from
21 doing so, and perhaps, you know, some members
22 definitely of the Senate would like to see that
23 happen.
24 MS. MALCOM: Thank you.
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3 down, there's one--Ms. Malcom?
4 MS. MALCOM: Yeah.
5 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: I apologize for
6 saying Betsy.
7 MS. MALCOM: No problem.
8 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: But thank you very
9 much for your testimony--your patience,
10 particularly. I just need to clarify, and I
11 thought you had indicated on the record, that the
12 Senate has passed an independent redistricting
13 bill that is in the form of a constitutional
14 amendment; that that was passed by the state
15 senate. You indicated that there was no such
16 measure or--in your testimony. I wish to clarify
17 for the record that there was.
18 MS. MALCOM: I'm sorry, I meant for
19 2012. I, I understand that.
20 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much.
21 MS. MALCOM: Thank you.
22 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Jessica Vicuno
23 [phonetic]? Vicuna? Jessica, indicate--Ms.
24 Vicuna, would you please, for the record,
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3 testifier in our hearings from an organization
4 called "Act Now." It's listed as your--is that
5 correct, that you are--
6 JESSICA VICUNA, ORGANIZER AND VOLUNTEER,
7 ACT NOW: [Interposing] I'm part of that
8 organization, yes, but I am representing myself.
9 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: So you're not
10 speaking on behalf of Act Now? As a member of
11 the organization, for the record, could you tell
12 me what is Act Now?
13 MS. VICUNA: Act Now is a group based in
14 New York City, and they are very much into fair
15 elections and educating the people about
16 government and civic policies. And I do believe
17 that they've been around since 2004. And, you
18 know, you're going to be seeing us more and more,
19 as time goes on, so--and I will be seeing you
20 guys in Manhattan.
21 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: It--it's Act Now is
22 based in Manhattan?
23 MS. VICUNA: Yes.
24 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Where is it based?
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3 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: [Interposing] Is it a
4 separate office or is it affiliated with--
5 MS. VICUNA: [Interposing] No. We're
6 just--we're just a group of people in New York
7 City. We have a Board and an Organization
8 Committee.
9 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Is there an office of
10 Act Now?
11 MS. VICUNA: Not at the moment, not at
12 the moment. Not that I--you know, we, we are a
13 very small--
14 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Do you have a
15 website?
16 MS. VICUNA: Yes, we do.
17 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: And is it--on that
18 website a list of the board of directors?
19 MS. VICUNA: Yes.
20 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Could you tell me, is
21 it an acronym? Is it Act Now--no, it's just
22 simply Act Now?
23 MS. VICUNA: It's Act Now, yes.
24 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: It's an accurate--
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3 MS. VICUNA: Okay. I would expect you,
4 gentleman, to take it easy on me, today?
5 [Laughter]
6 MS. VICUNA: Okay. Okay, good morning,
7 or good afternoon, members of LATFOR. My name is
8 Jessica Vicuna and I reside in New York City
9 district one. Thank you for letting me speak
10 about the issue. I will testify today to address
11 the concern for independent redistricting and the
12 many facets that fall under this issue, such as
13 counting people in prison, at home, compact and
14 contiguity, and a special session to pass
15 redistricting reform.
16 When dealing with the subject of
17 incarcerated individuals, census bureau currently
18 tallies who are disproportionately poor and
19 minorities. For redistricting purposes, where
20 they are imprisoned, they should be counted for
21 redistricting purposes in the communities where
22 they lived before their incarceration--which New
23 York, Delaware, Maryland recognized in 2010 when
24 adjusting, adjusting the census counts for
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3 The issue of compactness is complicated
4 because it is relative what connects a district
5 line to another and how a geometric shape is
6 fairly shaped. A mathematical formula may be the
7 best way to measure compactness. There are
8 various methods for calculating the compactness
9 of a district, including looking at how the
10 population is distributed within the district,
11 measuring the borders of the district, or
12 evaluating the area of the district; the idea of
13 people who share similar interests and
14 characteristics will form a community of common
15 interests, and therefore have representation.
16 However, compactness should be based on
17 numerical score for each district to set a
18 particular compact threshold, so that it can be
19 measured equally, at least as, let's say, compact
20 X. Not measured by highest or lowest score.
21 When so-called minority communities who tend to
22 vote for one particular party and live in smaller
23 areas or urban centers, as they say, compact
24 districts tend to pack these districts in and
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3 opposing party.
4 Lastly, I urge for Albany to hold a
5 special session for redistrict reform. It is an
6 issue that Cuomo intends to revisit because he
7 wants independent redistrict commission, am I
8 correct? So, indeed 184 of its 212 members
9 pledged or co-sponsored to create a new,
10 impartial process for drawing state legislative
11 and congressional lines. If this had passed,
12 then this hearing would be held before an
13 independent commission.
14 New York State has a rich history of
15 partisan gerrymandering, allowing the
16 disenfranchised to have a voice to say, and while
17 incumbents continue to hijack the reelection
18 rate. I believe in competitive, fair elections
19 and fair share division among our constituents.
20 Thank you for allowing me to speak about an issue
21 that is important to myself, the members of my
22 organization, and to those who stand by this
23 issue, and, yes, to those who have yet to
24 discover about redistricting. Thank you.
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3 Hedges.
4 MR. HEDGES: I'm a little confused about
5 compactness. Do you have a--do you have a
6 particular version of compactness that you're
7 interested in, or advocate?
8 MS. VICUNA: Well, if I were to tell
9 you, I would like a nice check for that. And
10 some of my - - colleagues. That was just a joke.
11 I don't have a specific formula for that, but
12 definitely using statistics--I wouldn't want to
13 use shapes. I would--like I said, I would use a
14 numerical score, but that--there are several
15 programs. I think one particular from Harvard
16 University, it's called BARD. I haven't really
17 researched it too much, but they do have
18 something that was kind of similar to what I just
19 said.
20 And the reason why I bring it up, it's
21 because it is such a complicated issue that
22 really concerns me, and it's some--it is
23 something that a lot of people have trouble
24 talking or explaining or articulating about. And
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3 MR. HEDGES: One of the concerns that is
4 frequently voiced about compactness as an idea is
5 that it means multiple things, and they're in
6 conflict with one another.
7 MS. VICUNA: Correct.
8 MR. HEDGES: A second concern that gets
9 voiced is that compactness often is directly in
10 competition with the ability to construct
11 districts that would give minority groups the
12 opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.
13 Do you have a sense of where you come out on
14 either the complexity, or on the tension between
15 minority representation and compactness as a--as
16 a policy?
17 MS. VICUNA: I just feel that--in
18 regards to that question, I'm really not 100%--I
19 don't have 100% answer. Like, I'm not really
20 sure how to answer that because it's, it's such
21 a--it's going to take me a longer time to sit
22 here--me stand here and explain this. But I have
23 a--I have--I do have something to ask you.
24 Especially--I live in a metropolitan
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3 Stuyvesant, which was predominantly African
4 American ten years ago. And now, with the issue
5 of gentrification, it's now a totally different
6 area. I want to ask you how does compactness
7 fare in that regard? I mean, how did--I mean,
8 what, what happens to the people that live there
9 and are pushed out to a smaller area in that--in
10 Bed-Stuyvesant, you know, which is in Brooklyn?
11 So, you know, it's, it's the reason I
12 brought up a mathematical formula, is because
13 it's--to me, it's the only way to kind of deal
14 with that problem and get away from a circle or
15 a, a square. Because there--it's too
16 complicated. It, it gets messy. And sometimes
17 we just need something a little bit more--a
18 little bit more simpler.
19 MR. HEDGES: And let me try again on my
20 question. Many would argue there's a tension
21 between a constructing compact districts in
22 constructing districts that give minorities the
23 opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.
24 Do you have a view on that tension? Do you favor
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3 districts? Do you favor minority districts over
4 compactness? Do you have a view?
5 MS. VICUNA: I, I--at the moment I do
6 favor a minority district.
7 MR. HEDGES: Another concern that has
8 been voiced more recently in some of the academic
9 literature is that compactness and urban work
10 nicely together. Compactness and rural--
11 MS. VICUNA: [Interposing] Yes, yes.
12 MR. HEDGES: --don't work so nicely
13 together, and that advocates of compactness--as a
14 standard--end up arguing for districts that are
15 biased against urban areas. Do you have a
16 thought about that as a problem?
17 MS. VICUNA: I've thought about it, and
18 I don't have a solution. I don't have a solution
19 for that. But I, I think that it--that's
20 something that all of you can, you know, think
21 about, because it's, it's gonna--it's gonna--the
22 problem isn't going to go away. It--there has to
23 be some sort of fair solution to that. I don't
24 really have a, a good enough answer for you, you
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3 with, but it's, it's a big concern of mine. And
4 I, I really do have a lot of faith that, you
5 know, our leaders will work on that in the
6 future.
7 MR. HEDGES: Thank you.
8 MS. VICUNA: Okay.
9 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: I'd like to follow up
10 on Mr. Hedges' questions and, and your issue of--
11 that you put forward regarding compactness. I
12 don't know if you heard our discussion with Ms.
13 Lerner from--on the issue of, of extending a
14 district so that they're now larger than many
15 states. I find the issue of compactness one of
16 great interest. And I have a district that's all
17 or parts of--I represent a district that has all
18 or parts of six counties. The smallest
19 geographic size county--you could put the entire
20 Manhattan Island within that county and still
21 have a lot of room to spare in the smallest of my
22 counties--geographically.
23 MS. VICUNA: Okay.
24 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: And, so in terms of
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3 guess for the record, are you--are you submitting
4 to the Task Force a mathematical formula
5 regarding compactness?
6 MS. VICUNA: I am not submitting a
7 mathematical formula but--
8 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: [Interposing] Just so
9 let it be known, for the record, are you--as Act
10 Now, having any relationship to your proffering
11 of testimony relative to the Voting Rights Act?
12 And the requirements that New York must comply
13 under Article Two and Five sections of the
14 voting, sections are the--section two and section
15 five of the Voting Rights Act, and does that not
16 play into those issues that you are concerned
17 with?
18 MS. VICUNA: Absolutely, especially,
19 especially section five, yes.
20 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Well, I have no
21 further questions. Any--Assemblyman Oaks?
22 ASSEMBLY MEMBER OAKS: Just a quick
23 comment, you know, your suggestion that the
24 community that you live in or most familiar with
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3 MS. VICUNA: Yes.
4 ASSEMBLY MEMBER OAKS: I think, you--you
5 know, part of the challenge--and somebody used
6 the word "messy," somebody used the word
7 "difficult"--clearly those changes, whether it's
8 your community or others, will be reflected in
9 the proposal that comes out initially.
10 MS. VICUNA: Okay.
11 ASSEMBLY MEMBER OAKS: And also then we
12 will gain more input from people, and perhaps--
13 and we'll make changes to that as, as people
14 react and respond to that. Those changes may not
15 be done as you perceive should be, but they--it
16 clearly, that's part of the puzzle and, and the
17 process of, of putting this altogether.
18 The other thing is that because there
19 are defined limits of numbers of people, so in
20 the state with a little bit of deviation--plus
21 and minus a bit, but it is difficult to be
22 totally precise. And so whether an independent
23 group does it, whether this group does it, or
24 someone else, the implications--and I think other
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3 federal law and the Voters Rights Act, whether we
4 do ultimately count the prisoners as the law says
5 to date, or as the court may rule for the law,
6 and we follow forward, or they rule against it
7 and we count them where they were in the day of
8 the census count in the prison--all of those
9 things will be reflected.
10 So I just want to say that the, the
11 difficulty of that--no one will be fully happy
12 with the process, no matter who counts it, but my
13 commitment and, and I think the members here, is
14 our effort to try to make this a fair and open
15 process with the input that you've given others
16 to try to make this happen.
17 MS. VICUNA: Thank you.
18 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you.
19 MS. VICUNA: Is that all?
20 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much.
21 Jane Daniels.
22 JANE DANIELS, CITIZEN: Good afternoon,
23 and thank you for the opportunity to speak. I am
24 representing myself, all right? and I would also
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3 redistricting. I'd like to also diverge a little
4 bit from my written testimony that I submitted to
5 say--sitting here today, I have learned an
6 incredible amount of civics. It's almost like we
7 should bring all the kids in ninth grade here at
8 some point to be able to hear what goes on. But
9 I don't think 13-year-olds will appreciate all
10 that goes on to make our government run. I live
11 in the town of Yorktown. I'm--
12 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: [Interposing] At the
13 very least, I noticed you were knitting back
14 there, you maybe got some--you at least got
15 something accomplished this morning.
16 [Laughter]
17 MS. DANIELS: Sandy Galef can assure you
18 I always take my knitting with me.
19 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: What are you making?
20 For the record.
21 MS. DANIELS: For the record, I'm make--
22 I'm making a tank top. But I've had to rip out
23 twice in order to get it to fit right. So I can
24 appreciate your gentleman's trying to get this
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3 ideas that are at loggerheads with each other.
4 So, I live in the town of Yorktown and
5 I'm represented by Nan Hayworth in the 19th
6 district--Congressional district, Stephen Katz in
7 the Assembly district--that's number--the 99th,
8 and Greg Ball in the 40th. I've been a resident
9 of Yorktown since 1968, and I know the Hudson
10 Valley in a variety of ways because I had worked
11 for the Hudson Valley Greenway, travelled up and
12 down the Hudson Valley back in the early '90s,
13 and then again I worked for the mid-Hudson
14 Library System, and worked with communities in
15 the Mid-Hudson area.
16 I'm the author of "Walk the
17 Westchester," so I have visited over 200 parks in
18 the process of writing the book. So I think I
19 know my community had--on the ground, better than
20 most people. I'm a retired reference librarian,
21 and have worked in Croton, Nyack, and the Nyack
22 communities, so I know those residents, when I
23 worked there, quite well.
24 Redistricting is obviously a problem--a
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3 is made easier or harder because we can rely on
4 GIS data, and I was pleased to hear references
5 earlier to the maps that will be brought and
6 used. But this doesn't take--this data doesn't
7 take into account what a community really is,
8 even when you have the capacity to map the data.
9 For example, I live in Yorktown. It's a
10 predominantly white, middle class community with
11 families. The Croton Reservoir and the Taconic
12 Parkway divide the town. Yorktown has an area
13 with wealth and low income, that's easy to put on
14 the map to show where those are. And I--
15 interestingly enough, it's the republicans in
16 our--in my town who are more environmentally
17 savvy. Yorktown is proud to boast it has a
18 variety of protected open space--including a
19 state park, a public golf course, and all of you
20 probably know about the pedestrian bridge over
21 the Taconic--the bridge to nowhere, which I say
22 now connects to two town parks.
23 I have some suggestions to make in a
24 variety of levels. The districts that have a
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3 first to be dissolved, split, or consolidated.
4 Realistically, it's likely that democrats will
5 lose one Congressional seat, and republicans
6 another. That's just the observation that I
7 have. Don't automatically eliminate the
8 Congressional seat vacated when Anthony Weiner
9 from Long Island resigned in June. I've seen
10 comments in the Washington Post to that effect
11 and I think that that would be a big mistake.
12 The Hudson River is a geographic barrier
13 and makes a natural boundary. I know this having
14 worked in Nyack and lived in Yorktown. The
15 people there simply were amazed that I would
16 cross the river on the Tappan Zee Bridge to come
17 over to work in their community. And I found I
18 learned a lot by seeing the other side of the
19 river.
20 So my question is, why is Poughkeepsie
21 part of Maurice Hinchey's Congressional district?
22 It's--I know that you--and for what I have
23 learned today, that you have been--sometimes you
24 have to pull pockets from one place to another to
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3 Congressional districts. But I still ask that
4 question anyway.
5 I now know that you are going to bring
6 in some non-partisan people to work at--look at
7 GS--GIS maps and the census tracks. I'm glad to
8 hear--I'm glad to hear that, and that was part of
9 my learning process. But now I raise some
10 questions. It is harder to re--to represent a
11 more diverse population or one that has more
12 community interests? I don't expect these
13 questions to be answered, but I think I need to
14 raise them.
15 Should Rockland County be just one
16 district for Congress, the Assembly, and the
17 State Senate? Aside from the State Senate is
18 three congressional districts and four state
19 assemblyman's areas. Should you consider
20 splitting a par--a town, if there's a physical
21 barrier such as a river, train tracks, or highway
22 dividing it? Why does Senator Ball's Senate
23 district snake up through Dutchess County into
24 rural areas, and yet includes Peekskill, which is
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3 Washington, they might be smaller than Peekskill,
4 but are they more like the other towns that
5 surround them in eastern Dutchess County.
6 And I'd also like--this is more of a
7 personal interest. I would like to see Yorktown
8 returned to the 90th Assembly district. We have
9 more in common with western Putnam County,
10 Cortland, Ossining, and Peekskill than the folks
11 in eastern Putnam County.
12 So, in closing, I'd like to say there's
13 no perfect way to divide up New York--New York
14 State. I don't envy you. Someone is going to be
15 upset no matter what you do, and some politicians
16 will lose, and some will win in the process.
17 That's the nature of the beast. So again, thank
18 you for holding the hearings here in Westchester.
19 And I hope to, to come back to when you're--look
20 at the maps and see what has been drawn up.
21 Thank you.
22 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: Thank you.
23 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much.
24 Matt Richter? Matt Richter.
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3 I live here in White Plains in Westchester County
4 and I work on the board of legislators as a
5 legislative aid, and I thank you very much for
6 coming to Westchester County today to hold this
7 public hearing. And I'd like to commend the Task
8 Force for the hard work you're undertaking on
9 behalf of the voters of the state of New York.
10 And as I, in capacity, working as a
11 legislative aid, talk to voters around
12 Westchester County and, and in fact the entire
13 state, I believe that the electorate is
14 experiencing right now a crisis of confidence.
15 Watching the debt ceiling debate unfold in
16 Washington and the subsequent downgrade of our
17 credit rating is just the latest example of the
18 sort of partisan political wrangling that has
19 left many voters in New York feeling that party
20 politics and not principles are the driving force
21 in a lot of our legislative deb--debates. And
22 Governor Cuomo's proposed independent commission,
23 which is in the Assembly, is not one that will
24 inspire confidence in voters once they take a
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3 The Governor's plan is a complicated
4 one. It has a number of flaws. And the experts
5 I've spoken to about the plan tell me that it is
6 inherently flawed and is unconstitutional, in
7 fact, and will undoubtedly end up being
8 challenged through litigation. And that kind of
9 legal standoff is not what will inspire
10 confidence in voters for lawmakers that New York-
11 -New York voters are looking for.
12 Secondly, the Governor's appointment
13 ideas for his commission would unfairly weigh the
14 appointments in favor of the Governor. And that
15 kind of gaming the system is obvious to voters
16 and, again, will only exacerbate the crisis of
17 confidence felt throughout the electorate.
18 Finally, with the possibility of the
19 primary being moved up to June, I think it's just
20 too late in the game for the Governor to be
21 changing the rules and trying to set up an
22 independent commission.
23 This Task Force--your Task Force--for
24 which is fair and truly bipartisan, has already
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3 is well on the way to a fair and equitable plan,
4 and Mr. Hedges said will be forthcoming in the
5 form of a draft, which we all look forward to
6 seeing.
7 In addition to the Governor's plan, I
8 also have taken some time to look at the plan
9 that passed the Senate, and if there were, were
10 more time, I think that that plan could be
11 implemented, but there just simply isn't enough
12 time with the possibility of the primaries being
13 moved up.
14 You know, redistricting is a difficult
15 and onerous task, one that we just went through
16 in the legislative body that I work for. And,
17 you know, I--I'm confident that we reached a, a
18 plan that was fair to all the elected officials
19 and equitable to both major parties, but there
20 will always be people that feel dissatisfied.
21 And I just hope that the decision makers in
22 Albany take this opportunity for redistricting to
23 inspire confidence that I think is really, really
24 lacking right now, and, and allow people to feel
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3 elective process is one that they're, they're
4 happy to be engaged in and, and has integrity
5 that I know you all intend to bring to it. Thank
6 you.
7 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Mr. Richter, thank
8 you very much. Any questions of the panel? I'm
9 hearing none. Thank you very much for your
10 testimony. Andrew Beveridge.
11 ANDREW BEVERIDGE, PH.D., PROFESSOR AND
12 DEMOGRAPHIC CONSULTANT, QUEENS COLLEGE, CUNY, AND
13 SOCIAL EXPLORER: Good afternoon. I'm really
14 quite pleased to be here today. My name is
15 Andrew Beveridge. I live in east Yonkers, and I
16 am Professor of Sociology at Queens College in
17 the Graduate Center of Cuny. And since the early
18 1990's, I've actually been involved in
19 redistricting in both Westchester County and in
20 the state of New York to some extent.
21 Most particularly, some of my handiwork
22 has been discussed here today since I was the
23 person who helped the Board of Elections--a Board
24 of Legislators of Westchester County craft their
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3 council craft their plan. And, beyond that, I
4 also have been involved in redistricting
5 litigation--most particularly in Westchester
6 County, in the case of Porkchester [phonetic]
7 where I served for--with the DOJ, and in New
8 Rochelle, where I - - New Rochelle.
9 And during the late 1980's, early
10 1990's, I served as a trustee and for one year as
11 President of the Yonkers--President of the
12 Yonkers Board of Education. And for a brief term
13 I was second vice chair of the Yonkers Democratic
14 party, as the result of a so-called reform
15 movement. I was also very active in a number of
16 civic groups trying to call some of the issues
17 surrounding Yonkers irrigation orders. And I
18 understand the kind of work that you people have
19 to do, because I've been there and have done it.
20 But I also have been on the other side,
21 where such work ends up in a difficult situation,
22 and I then worked for people who actually tried
23 to set aside redistricting plans. And I wanted
24 to testify today on three issues. I'm not going
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3 -revisit the independent redistricting
4 commission, or any of those sorts of things. I
5 have--I have discussed that before. Some of that
6 is up on the Gotham Gazette website where I write
7 a, a monthly column.
8 But first I want to congratulate LATFOR
9 for going along, you know, go--implementing the
10 prison decision--the prison population, a law
11 that actually in Westchester County, at the very
12 last moment, we had to take that into account and
13 it was somewhat complicated. I still believe,
14 however, that prisoners really are not residents
15 of the prison--prisons where they are, but they
16 are, in fact, involuntary sojourners, as some
17 call them. And so the councilman at district is
18 that they're people at large is plainly
19 incorrect.
20 And, secondly, I want to talk about a
21 point that probably is seen as kind of technical
22 and dweeb-ish, which has to do with the citizens
23 of voting age population. During the last--I
24 really call on you people to add these data to
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3 to find out at the end of the day that those are
4 going to be the data that will drive the
5 analysis--both of section two and section five.
6 And, as you must know, the census was
7 redesigned for this round, and the census itself
8 only ascertained on a very narrow set of
9 questions--not including citizenship. What used
10 to be on the so-called census long form, the
11 census sample, is now asked on the American
12 Community survey, including the census. So
13 during the last round of redistricting, the data
14 were not actually compiled by any governmental
15 agency, but rather were ordered up by a coalition
16 of redistricting consultants. However, both
17 sides ended up using them. And, in my own case,
18 we used them in New Rochelle, Port Chester, and
19 for the challenge to the State Senate plan. So I
20 believe that they are the accepted test for
21 section two and section five.
22 And this time around a special
23 tabulation was ordered by the Department of
24 Justice. My assumption is they're going to use
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3 actually, before loss of the population did a
4 release--it was a release in early February. So
5 these data can now be used immediately for Voting
6 Rights Act issues.
7 And there are some differences between
8 the ACS, you know, Census long form. The first
9 ACS five year file was released in December, and
10 the data were collected from 2005 to 2009. As
11 was the long form, the census ACS is a sample,
12 and there's--actually the census' computation of
13 so-called standard error or confidence - - is
14 plainly wrong, and it vastly overestimates here
15 in many cases.
16 And the second issue with the ACS is
17 that results are forced to conform to the--at the
18 county level, to the census estimates. But the
19 census itself says that the proportions are
20 accurate. So I think that you should use the
21 CVAP.
22 But the most compelling reason is that
23 for citizenship rates for some immigrant groups
24 are really very low. In Port Chester, the
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3 think, bordered on 30%. So if you don't use
4 citizen CVAP, you're going to overstate the
5 actual political strength of some groups and
6 understate it for others. And I think it makes
7 it much more complicated.
8 So it also means that calculations
9 related to racially polarized voting--which I
10 suspect you will probably do, or have a
11 consultant do for you--could be misleading. So
12 therefore I urge LATFOR to release CVAP data for
13 current and proposed districts. And I have
14 appended my - - such data for all the current
15 legislative districts for New York state.
16 And then I also want to comment briefly
17 on Westchester County lines. I, I want you to
18 take into account the actual current status of
19 racially polarized voting here, so as not to
20 damage minority representation in the Senate or
21 the Assembly. Put simply, the record of racially
22 polarized voting--especially for districts as
23 large as Assembly or Senate in Westchester
24 County--is quite attenuated. Analysis for
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3 polarization at present.
4 For instance, the County Board of
5 Legislatures, which has 17 seats, and which I did
6 redistrict, currently has four minority
7 legislators, three African Americans and a
8 Hispanic. But, if you look at it from the point
9 of view of effective majority, it only has one
10 majority-minority seat. So, in other words, it's
11 vastly over-performing.
12 Similarly said, district 35, which in
13 the past showed strong polarized voting, now does
14 not. The incumbent, an African American, is in a
15 district with a majority of non-Hispanic white
16 voting age citizens, with only 13.9 percent--
17 percentage of African American citizen of voting
18 age. Yonkers, perhaps, is getting over its long
19 history of racial polarization. And I urge those
20 doing the redistricting not to do anything that
21 would reinforce divisive politics in the
22 community, since apparently with respect to the
23 State Senate, the voters are now coalescing
24 cross-racially.
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3 few minority districts, as well as cracking them
4 by making them a minority--and several can dilute
5 minority voting strength. However, when one has
6 a situation where the voters themselves seem to
7 reject such racial polarization, there is no
8 reason for those doing redistricting to try to
9 re-inject such polarization into a community. I
10 thank you for the opportunity to address this
11 committee and my--I have a--my--whatever--written
12 statement is somewhat longer. Thank you very
13 much.
14 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Are there any
15 questions of, of Mr. Beveridge?
16 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: You know, I, I
17 appreciate your, your testimony and would hope
18 that you would, would send in a copy of the map
19 of the new districts for Westchester County. Did
20 you originally have 17, or did you reduce the
21 number?
22 MR. BEVERIDGE: No, no, we didn't have
23 17 to start and we saw at 17.
24 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: And we'd like
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3 MR. BEVERIDGE: Yeah, you probably do,
4 but that--there would--that would be no problem
5 sending you that and all of the data, you know,
6 related to it.
7 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: Thank you.
8 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Senator Dilan?
9 SENATOR DILAN: Yes, thank you very
10 much, doctor, for your testimony today. I
11 basically have two questions. The first, in
12 terms of data, it appears that you have a lot of
13 background with the data necessary to do
14 redistricting. Do you feel that this Task Force
15 at this time has provided sufficient data to the
16 public in terms of them having the ability to
17 draw their own lines? Or do you feel that we
18 need to provide more data?
19 MR. BEVERIDGE: Well, my point really is
20 that you probably have not because I think you
21 should add to the data that you have in your
22 system, the citizen of voting age population
23 data. And, you know, it has to be probably
24 disaggregated to the blocks--from the block
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3 guide when people are looking and the district
4 and saying, "Is this district Hispanic? Or is
5 this district African American?"
6 And I know, when we--I was involved with
7 the State Senate challenge--the challenge to the
8 State Senate lines last time. And there were a
9 number of districts that appeared to be Latino,
10 that when you added citizen of voting age
11 population, it turned out not to be Latino. And
12 in, you know, counter-distinction, there are a
13 number of districts that did not appear to be the
14 majority African American, then when you use
15 citizen of voting age population, they, they
16 turned out to be African American.
17 And I think that citizens of voting age
18 population, you know, kind of emerged as a
19 standard during the--during the last decade. And
20 then there was a--you know, the recent case,
21 which escapes me at the moment. Basically argues
22 that a minority group is not actually eligible or
23 not--cannot make a claim for a district unless
24 they're--you know they have a majority. So I
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3 where there's a majority or a minority districts.
4 I think also, however, you know, that
5 isn't the guide. I mean, you know, you don't
6 have to say well, "This is what they did if they
7 sued." You know, you can--you can obviously
8 craft districts that are better than that, but I
9 think you should--I think everyone should know
10 what they're talking about when, when you go
11 forward.
12 SENATOR DILAN: And do you feel that we
13 should be going back as far as the last time we
14 redistricted--meaning going back ten years with
15 respect to data?
16 MR. BEVERIDGE: No, I--what I'm saying
17 is that you should put--
18 SENATOR DILAN: [Interposing] I'm asking
19 do you--
20 MR. BEVERIDGE: --this first on the
21 voting age data that was released--
22 SENATOR DILAN: [Interposing] No, I
23 understand what you were saying--
24 MR. BEVERIDGE: --on February of 2011.
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3 that, do you feel--how many years we have to go
4 back in providing data to the public?
5 MR. BEVERIDGE: Well, it seems to me, to
6 test retrogression, you need the last decade. I
7 mean, so you would need data from 2010 and 2000--
8 including the citizen of voting age data, which
9 is all right. You know, I understand it showed
10 up in the late '90--late 2003, after everyone had
11 drawn all their lines, but it's different this
12 time because the data are out. So, since the
13 data are out, even if they have some issues, I
14 think they should be shared and used.
15 The Department of Justice plainly meant
16 that to be, and that's why I actually--I appended
17 a table with my testimony that actually takes
18 every single district in New York state
19 currently, and looks at it from the point of view
20 of citizen voting age. Although, I noticed this
21 morning I didn't do non-Hispanic/White, but I did
22 do African American, Hispanic, and Asian.
23 SENATOR DILAN: One more question. I, I
24 understand that the New York Times had asked you
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3 in, in this area. Can you share any of the
4 points of that analysis with us?
5 MR. BEVERIDGE: Well, actually, some of
6 that is out. I mean, this part of the analysis
7 here is in, like, this--the thing I gave you
8 today, and a part of it is actually on the
9 website for--when the Senate Dems had a hearing,
10 some of it's on that website. And I also re--
11 kind of re-purposed that and put it up--put it up
12 with an article in the Gotham Gazette website,
13 where I speak. And I think this material, plus,
14 you know, anything else you want, I'm--I would
15 certainly be willing to share.
16 SENATOR DILAN: All right, thank you
17 doctor.
18 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Assemblyman Oaks?
19 ASSEMBLY MEMBER OAKS: All right, in
20 your written testimony, you were talking about
21 the community survey. You said direct comparison
22 of the totals in the ACS files with the totals in
23 the census files can lead to anomalies. This
24 will be corrected when the 2006 to '10 ACS files
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3 the census. Do you know when they're going to
4 be. . .
5 MR. BEVERIDGE: See, that's--actually,
6 listening to your February deadline, you know,
7 that becomes somewhat problematic. As I say to--
8 this last time they were released February 8th.
9 I actually was down at the Department of Justice
10 last week on another matter, and our--maybe it
11 was two weeks ago. And we discussed that, and I
12 think they're going to order--you know, they're
13 going to keep ordering it. So maybe we'll--
14 they'll get it out quicker.
15 They expect the Jan--the regular ACS
16 will be released in December again, the five year
17 file, so my guess is it would be either January
18 or February. My own--but the other point I
19 should make is just like--the new ACS will only
20 have one more year of data. You know, it--but it
21 will fix a few issues.
22 So I think you should probably use the
23 '05-'09 for the estimates, and then confirm it
24 when the '06-'10 comes out because otherwise, you
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3 the '06-'10 is out, that will be kind of the gold
4 standard for assessing effective majority. And
5 so you should, should know that when you pass a
6 bill--is my view.
7 You know--and also since it has to get
8 pre-cleared, right? You know, so, you know,
9 they're going to be using it. So we--you should-
10 -in other words, I think the public should have
11 what the DOJ is going to use to assess your
12 plans. And I think it goes beyond voting age
13 population--especially in New York. I mean, it
14 may not be true in, like, South Carolina as much
15 or something, but New York, with the large number
16 of immigrants here, I think it has--you know, it
17 only makes sense that, that you actually
18 seriously look at citizen of voting age
19 population.
20 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: My questions deal
21 with the representation that you have made
22 regarding the potential sampling inaccuracies of
23 the survey. And I'd like to hit this on two
24 levels, that the issue that's before us is the
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3 on the LATFOR's website, and in so doing endorse
4 it's veracity. That's a concern I have, and it
5 is--it's something that's actually amplified by
6 your testimony, because it--you discuss the
7 errors in the process. Please elaborate.
8 MR. BEVERIDGE: Well, there's a
9 confidence interval with any sample. And the
10 census in 2000 had, had a sample. It was called
11 the long form. The reason that people didn't
12 really grab onto the fact that it was a sample
13 and that it, you know, had a sampling error had
14 to do with the fact that it was done at the same
15 time, and the census bureau called everything the
16 census. You know, so it was the 2010 census had
17 a short form and a long form. The long form was
18 the sample.
19 In 2010 what they--well, what they did
20 was they split the long form, and it's, it's now
21 this American Community survey. It's--they're
22 out there every year. And so, after five years,
23 they have about the same number of respondents as
24 they used to have on the long form. And so they
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3 first put it out, I looked at some of their
4 standard errors.
5 And I mean the one that I mentioned in
6 there is, like, they--you know, we know, for
7 example, in Westchester County, that there are
8 not that many Native Americans in Westchester
9 County and that we would be surprised to find
10 Native Americans in lots of the block groups in
11 Westchester County. So every block group in
12 Westchester County that has no people in it--no--
13 where they find no Native Americans, the census
14 bureau has put in an arbitrary number as their
15 confidence interval--I think it's 133. It might
16 be 131. It might be 123, but something like
17 that.
18 So basically they're saying that this
19 block group could have--where they found no
20 African Americans--could have as many as 133
21 African Americans, or as few as minus 133 African
22 Americans, which is plainly absurd. And so I
23 wrote a memo and sent it to the census bureau
24 about their methods, and actually that memo is up
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3 [phonetic], so I put it up with the census
4 bureau's response on Scribbet. So I wrote this
5 to the census bureau, and they basically
6 responded that they realize this is a problem,
7 but that to get it fixed in a production
8 environment, you know, they're working on it.
9 So it seems to me that, given the fact
10 that the data exist, you could put it out with a
11 warning label. Because I think you're going to
12 find at the end of the day, that you, you will--
13 you know, it will be used for section five
14 assessment.
15 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Well that's fine.
16 MR. BEVERIDGE: So you're basically--
17 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: [Interposing] And
18 that's appropriate, but I guess the--I don't
19 think the Task Force should be--I--I'm troubled
20 with that recommendation. The Task Force is
21 saying this data may or may not be accurate--is
22 not the type of responsible public service that
23 the Task Force should be providing.
24 MR. BEVERIDGE: Well, frankly, for large
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3 districts or 120,000 districts--the standard
4 error is going to be pretty darn small. You
5 know, the, the error is going to be very small.
6 It's large at the--and you know, this is true
7 with anything. If you have a small sample, you
8 have a high standard error. So in your block
9 group you're going to have a small sample, so you
10 have a high standard error, or, you know, and the
11 conference interval is very wide.
12 You get into 700,000, which is large.
13 As you point out, is larger than several states,
14 including Rhode Island and Wyoming. You know,
15 when you get up to that level, you're--you know,
16 the size of your standard error is going to be
17 minimal. So, so I say to, you know, not to put
18 it out, it would be actually both irresponsible
19 and misleading, because they say--
20 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: [Interposing] Well,
21 the census bureau is--
22 MR. BEVERIDGE: [Interposing] Well, let
23 me finish.
24 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: And, and I think that
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3 is available through the census bureau, and I--
4 MR. BEVERIDGE: [Interposing] But not to
5 be used by anybody in New York.
6 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Well, it's not a
7 question of "use," it's a question of
8 accessibility and is that information available.
9 You're saying that the only way this information
10 could be available is to put it on the, the
11 website of the Task Force?
12 MR. BEVERIDGE: Well, you put up VAP
13 data.
14 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: I, I--
15 MR. BEVERIDGE: [Interposing] You have
16 voting age population data up on your Task--
17 website, and that's completely misleading.
18 Because you're saying that, you know, let's say a
19 town that has 70% of a town, or, you know, let's
20 say there's 10,000 Hispanics in a town but only
21 30,000. Or say this--there's 20,000 Hispanics in
22 a town. 10,000 of them are voting age and only
23 3,000 can vote. So putting up the VAP data--
24 10,000 is completely misleading. So what you're
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3 than putting up data which has a known
4 potentially miscalculated error level. I, I
5 don't--you know that--it strikes me that's a--
6 that's a very weird position.
7 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: All right. It, it--
8 MR. BEVERIDGE: [Interposing] I mean, in
9 other words, it's a position--
10 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: [Interposing] I, I--
11 you've just taken us all on a roller coaster. I,
12 I think that in terms of the--in terms of the
13 position is--and the issue is whether or not by
14 placement of certain data on the website. And
15 this is--this is not necessarily census data.
16 This is data that in effect is data regarding
17 survey--
18 MR. BEVERIDGE: [Interposing] Excuse me-
19 -it is census data. It's produced by the census
20 bureau, and it has exactly the same use and, in
21 effect, provenance as the long--census long form
22 did in 2000 when it was produced and used for
23 citizen of voting age population. So, I don't--I
24 don't think that's accurate.
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3 MR. BEVERIDGE: The fact that it's not
4 census data. It's effectively census date.
5 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: It's census data.
6 However, you just indicated--and this is why
7 you're testimony is very confusing to me--that
8 the--you indicated clearly that there was error
9 in this survey data, yet the survey data, you
10 said, was the sampling error you had questions
11 about. It's in your--in your written testimony.
12 And that, subject to sampling error, and that
13 however--you know, it quotes you. "However the
14 proportions of a given group or category in the
15 ACS should be correct--even in the totals are
16 incorrect."
17 Well, you tell me how that's helpful to
18 the public. If it's one way correct--even though
19 the totals are incorrect, aren't you just simply
20 putting summersaults onto this process that may
21 be more confusing to the average citizen than
22 elaborative?
23 MR. BEVERIDGE: Well, unless, unless you
24 want to confuse the citizens by pretending like
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3 of citizens of voting age population is not a
4 relevant category in a given district, the answer
5 is no.
6 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Well, you indicated
7 that the way around it would to be put a warning
8 label on the data. So would it not make more
9 sense to say that this data is available? I'm
10 not saying it's irrelevant. I'm saying it's
11 relevant. We don't--I'm not arguing with you
12 about its relevance, I'm arguing with you about
13 its accuracy. And it shouldn't--and I'm
14 questioning, not arguing. I'm questioning about
15 the accuracy, because we want to do the right
16 thing.
17 And is the right thing posting something
18 that we're ascribing to as being accurate when,
19 in fact, the census bureau has questions with it
20 itself? And you indicated also the data--you
21 said two things. You said first the data is out-
22 -is available now. Well, that's true. However,
23 you also indicated that the current data is yet
24 to be released--in terms of updating and its
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3 until the end of the year. Is that not--
4 MR. BEVERIDGE: [Interposing] It's
5 updated every year.
6 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Pardon?
7 MR. BEVERIDGE: So the first--the 20--
8 the '05-'09 ACS was released last December. The
9 '06-'10 ACS will be released this December. The
10 '07-'11 ACS will be released after that. And it
11 strikes me that, given the fact that this data is
12 relevant for, for computing effective majorities
13 of minority districts, the putting it up with its
14 standard error would be the responsible thing to
15 do. And making it difficult for the public to
16 get to it--even though it's going to be used, I'm
17 sure, by all of your consultants--would be the
18 wrong thing to do.
19 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much
20 for your elaboration, and I, I appreciate the
21 input very much. One more question, member of
22 the panel. Mr. Hedges?
23 MR. HEDGES: Just, just a question
24 regarding the information that you presented in
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3 MR. BEVERIDGE: Sure.
4 MR. HEDGES: You indicate that you've
5 got a, a calculator. You--you've produced a
6 number that is citizen voting age population for
7 a district. Is that something where you had to
8 do the work, or was that something that the
9 census bureau has already tabulated that number,
10 and it's available?
11 MR. BEVERIDGE: No, I had to do that
12 work.
13 MR. HEDGES: The, the district then--the
14 fact that the geography for 2000 is the geography
15 for the survey, but the blocks and descriptions
16 for 2010 districts are the new census, how did
17 you bring those in conjunction?
18 MR. BEVERIDGE: Well, I mean, the census
19 bureau actually has, at the block level, a code
20 that shows every state legislative district, both
21 upper and lower house--
22 MR. HEDGES: [Interposing] Right.
23 MR. BEVERIDGE: --of every congressional
24 district. So you can assign 2010 blocks easily
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3 assembly districts. So that's up with--in their
4 block file. And then, what I did was I basically
5 allocated the data to the--because it's all--into
6 the--to the block file. So I allocated at the
7 block file and then built it back up.
8 This was a technology technique that we
9 used in the court cases I referenced, and where
10 both sides used these techniques. It wasn't like
11 one person or another person used the techniques,
12 you know, we used it and they didn't--we both
13 used the same techniques. So, you know, so it's
14 basically out there, it's been used.
15 I think the thing that's a little
16 strange was that the last time around the CVAP
17 data was not out until 20--well, they were
18 ordered up by election data services and several
19 other comp--firms. And then they weren't
20 actually out available. And, see, that last time
21 around, to put it simply, they were available in
22 time to litigate--not in time to draw. This
23 time, there would--they would be available in
24 time to draw.
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3 I'm just asking the question--
4 MR. BEVERIDGE: [Interposing] Yeah.
5 MR. HEDGES: --that speaks to the
6 mismatch in geography.
7 MR. BEVERIDGE: Well, it's the blocks.
8 Blocks mismatch. I mean, you know, the same
9 thing is true with the blocks. Because the 2000
10 districts were drawn based on 2000 block lines,
11 and they've been translated in 2010 block lines.
12 You know, that--and that's the way, I'm sure, you
13 computed. I don't know what software you're
14 using, but I'm sure that's the way you computed
15 the, the current count, et cetera.
16 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Excuse me. Excuse
17 me, Mr. Hedges. If I may? Just on, on that
18 line, is the geography of this data currently up
19 to date?
20 MR. BEVERIDGE: It's, it's they're using
21 2000 geography. But they all--
22 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: [Interposing] So then
23 it would not be up to date, then, relative to our
24 2010 census?
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3 that's true, but the census bureau has also
4 provided tools to make it very easy to move data
5 from the 2000 boundaries to the 2010 boundaries.
6 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Well, see, and then
7 that's exactly my point. The census bureau knows
8 how to do this. And that's why I'm having--
9 following your suggestion of LATFOR putting it on
10 our website, we not only would have to have a
11 disclaimer, as you recommended, but also a
12 toolbox, so that the citizen could then
13 participate with appropriate tools. That, that
14 means quite a bit in terms of the
15 responsibilities of the Task Force that I think--
16 it seems to me a disclaimer plus a tool box makes
17 for a confused electorate.
18 MR. BEVERIDGE: Well, if you're not
19 going to use it yourselves for section five
20 filings, then I'd say go--you know, do it. But
21 if you--if you actually yourselves use the
22 citizen of voting age population for section five
23 filings and to draw districts, then you're not
24 giving to public everything you're using. That's
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3 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: I guess I'm searching
4 for a better way to guide the public on obtaining
5 this information. At the same token, not having
6 it too cumbersome and too, too many disclaimers
7 down the road. Mr. Hedges, did--I interrupted
8 you. Are you completed? Thank you. Senator
9 Dilan?
10 SENATOR DILAN: Yes, just a, a
11 clarification that I need. What you're
12 suggesting is that if we utilize this data to, to
13 let's say provide a certain district to have the
14 ability to select a member of their own ethnic
15 group, or have that ability to choose an
16 individual, that we would perhaps have more
17 accurate data if we use your citizen VAP instead
18 of just VAP?
19 MR. BEVERIDGE: Oh yeah.
20 SENATOR DILAN: So we would be providing
21 that community a better opportunity in choosing
22 someone from their own group?
23 MR. BEVERIDGE: Yeah, it's like you
24 wouldn't have a bait and switch. You wouldn't
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3 fact--but, you know--vote--say based on voting
4 age population, but, but then it turns out it's
5 only 30 or 40% Hispanic when you look at citizen
6 of voting age. absolutely.
7 SENATOR DILAN: So it--so the example
8 would be if we had, let's say, 10,000 Latinos
9 living in a certain district that are over age
10 18. And let's say in fact, of 10,000, maybe
11 4,000 may not be citizens that are over 18. So
12 we're really misrepresenting the number of people
13 that are really eligible to vote?
14 MR. BEVERIDGE: Right. For, for the
15 part of the redistricting where you are worried
16 about effective majorities, yes, which is the--
17 SENATOR DILAN: [Interposing] So, by
18 using this number, we're using closer to a more
19 realistic number of what the population within
20 any given district represents.
21 MR. BEVERIDGE: Right. Even if it has
22 some error--yes.
23 SENATOR DILAN: Okay, it's better than
24 what we're using now--VAP?
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3 SENATOR DILAN: Okay, thank you.
4 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you, Senator
5 Dilan. Any other members of the panel with a
6 question for Mr. Beveridge? I'm hearing none.
7 Thank you very much for your testimony, sir.
8 MR. BEVERIDGE: Okay, thank you.
9 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Justin Wagner.
10 JUSTIN WAGNER, DEMOCRATIC DISTRICT
11 LEADER, TOWN OF CORTLANDT: I want to thank the
12 Task Force for this hearing, for the opportunity
13 to speak, and for a really interesting and
14 vigorous discussion. I've learned a lot sitting
15 here. I think everyone else has. And while I
16 feel a little bit like a, a vegetarian coming to
17 a steakhouse talking about an independent
18 commission, I do really want to thank the Task
19 Force for this opportunity.
20 New York faces a number of immediate and
21 critical challenges. Just to name a few, we are
22 not creating enough jobs and we certainly are not
23 educating our children like we need to be. But,
24 however, the reality is that we as a state will
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3 challenges without first reforming the way
4 government in Albany works. That starts with
5 campaign finance reform. That starts with ethics
6 reform. And it also starts with reforming the
7 way we draw our district lines every ten years.
8 The foundation of a government that
9 works for the people is an elected system that is
10 honest, open, and holds its elected leaders
11 accountable. Redistricting needs to be removed
12 from politics and conducted by an independent
13 commission. Governor Cuomo is right to demand
14 such a commission, and this is an issue that
15 residents of the Hudson Valley care deeply about.
16 This May, in Peekskill New York, I
17 helped organize with a bunch of other
18 organizations and, and individuals on the ground-
19 -a rally to call for independent redistricting.
20 And the people that we speak to about the issue
21 do not think that redistricting is a complicated
22 issue. It simply comes down to a question of who
23 should have the power--the people or politicians.
24 The people have the power when redistricting is
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3 Independent redistricting can result in
4 elections that are on even ground, can allow the
5 voice of the people to be heard, and truly
6 reflect the wishes of the citizen in a various
7 election cycles. The politicians have the power
8 when they or their appointees are allowed to draw
9 their own district lines. This is the current
10 status quo. And the people I talk to about this
11 issue ask another simple question. Can you
12 imagine the moxie of a person who goes for a job
13 interview and tries to both define the
14 qualifications sought and declare who the
15 interviewer and ultimate judge will be? Yet this
16 is exactly what our politicians do year after
17 year by drawing district lines to minimize
18 opposition, maximize support, and ensure
19 reelection.
20 Elections are job interviews where the
21 people are supposed to do the hiring. But for
22 years politicians in Albany have gerrymandered
23 district lines to hijack the influence of their
24 constituents in elections. An independent
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3 these wrongs.
4 First, districts should be compact and
5 contiguous. Second, there should be no
6 consideration given to party enrollment, voting
7 patterns, or where certain individuals live in
8 the drawing of district lines. Third, and to the
9 extent possible, communities of interest should
10 be kept together in the redistricting process.
11 I have been involved in redistricting
12 before, when it was not put in the hands of an
13 independent commission, and it is my belief that
14 this process simply does not work. In 2000, I
15 ran for and won a seat as a neighborhood
16 commissioner in the municipal government of
17 Washington D.C. while I was a student at
18 Georgetown University. In that role, as
19 neighborhood commissioner, I participated in a
20 Task Force much like this--although in a smaller
21 room, certainly--to draw district lines for our
22 area of Washington D.C., district two, which
23 includes Foggy Bottom, Georgetown, and other
24 areas in that part of the city. And despite the
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3 Force, myself included, it was impossible for
4 individuals not to bring their own political
5 motivations to the table.
6 Every time we discussed a district, a
7 line, a group, everyone brought their own
8 knowledge of who lived where and what such an
9 impact would have on the various constituencies.
10 It's my belief from this experience that allowing
11 politicians or political appointees--despite
12 their best intentions, to draw district lines is
13 no way to run a democracy. So I am here to call
14 for an independent redistricting commission in
15 the lines of what Governor Cuomo has called for,
16 and to say that it is time for this broken
17 process to be reformed, and that's why I urge New
18 Yorkers to embrace fair and independent
19 redistricting. Thank you for the opportunity to
20 testify.
21 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much,
22 Mr. Wagner. Any members of the panel have
23 questions for Mr. Wagner? I do. Mr. Wagner,
24 thank you very much for your interest and
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3 your testimony, and I want to ask about this Task
4 Force you served on. Was the Task Force--who
5 made up this Task Force in Washington D.C. that
6 you served on?
7 MR. WAGNER: Sure. Neighborhood
8 commissioners, so elected leaders--although the
9 lowest level of elected government in Washington-
10 -and then also a certain number of citizens,
11 almost all who were very politically active in
12 municipal government.
13 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: And what was the
14 drawing of--what municipal lines? City council
15 lines, or. . .
16 MR. WAGNER: Sure. The way Washington
17 D.C. government is organized--we have a mayor, we
18 have a city council, and then we have
19 neighborhood commissions. Each commission
20 represents about 20,000 constituents, and so
21 those lines are drawn by the local body and then
22 passed up to the city council.
23 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: So the neighborhood
24 commissioners were drawing the lines for city
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3 MR. WAGNER: No, for their own
4 neighborhood commission.
5 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: For their own
6 neighborhood commissioners. It--I--what makes a
7 neighborhood commissioner any different than an
8 appointee of a so-called independent commission?
9 I mean I think that you, you very astutely and I
10 think wisely indicated that the people were well-
11 intended, however--to quote you, it was
12 impossible for individuals not to bring their
13 political motivations to the table.
14 MR. WAGNER: Sure.
15 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: How would that be any
16 different, by commissioners or members of the
17 redistricting commission selected by the
18 governor, selected by the legislature--how would
19 that be any different in the same motivations of
20 human nature?
21 MR. WAGNER: Sure. And I, I think
22 there's two, two answers to that. One is I think
23 it would further remove an additional step
24 elected leaders. So it wouldn't be senator and
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3 appointee of--so we're, we're going one step
4 further away from elected leaders.
5 Second, I think one of the primary
6 concerns of mine with this Task Force is again--
7 not the intentions of the people serving on it,
8 but the air it creates for citizens who, who
9 quite rightly have been frustrated with Albany
10 for years. And to have the very people in the
11 legislature that--that their frustration is so
12 boiled over at--drawing their own district lines,
13 I think creates an air of impropriety--even in
14 none exists, that we should remove from that
15 process and put into the hands of non-elected
16 leaders.
17 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much.
18 Monica Miranda.
19 MONICA M. ARIAS MIRANDA, MPA, PRESIDENT
20 AND CEO, THE HISPANIC COALITION NY, INC.: Hello
21 everybody. Nice to see you all again.
22 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: It's very nice to see
23 you again, Ms. Miranda.
24 MS. MIRANDA: Thank you for the
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3 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: It's the third time,
4 I believe.
5 MS. MIRANDA: Yes, and not the last.
6 And I, I did not prepare a statement this time
7 because I think--well, since I've been attending
8 several of the hearings, it's very clear that one
9 of the issues that the community is bringing
10 forth to this group is the, the issue of being
11 fair to ensure a--that the electoral--electorate
12 is represented adequately. So I, I won't bring
13 that up again. And I really--my main focus on
14 being present here, on behalf of the Hispanic
15 Coalition of New York, is to continue raising the
16 issue and the point that the Latino community
17 continues to grow.
18 And the--one of the last speakers talked
19 about voting age population, and I actually will
20 be presenting that at the next hearing, so I was
21 glad to hear that. And I did want to highlight
22 that, since we are in Westchester County, that
23 Westchester County and the city of New Rochelle
24 are listed--according to the census date, they
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3 counties with Latino representation--and so is
4 the city. The county has 22% Latino population
5 and the city of New Rochelle 28%. So those are
6 numbers for you to keep into consideration.
7 And, as you move forward, one of the
8 suggestions that I would like to offer this body
9 is--and I would like to see as a constituent--a
10 little bit more information on the website as to
11 the process and how the Task Force will be making
12 decisions. So it--whether it be adding
13 information to the website, whether or not it's
14 information I may be able to understand--I would
15 be okay with that. But as long as I know what
16 the process is and what data you are looking at,
17 I think that would be very helpful to me and
18 perhaps other people--just to know what the
19 process is and to see what data you guys will be
20 looking at. And with that, thank you so much.
21 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much.
22 This is as good a time as any to indicate that
23 next week hearings will be conducted in, in
24 Binghamton and in Buffalo; that we hope to see
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3 provided us regarding the interests of Hispanics
4 and the population of the various regions--I
5 believe you testified in Rochester and, and in
6 Albany, that the--that information is very
7 important, and we, we are making it part of our
8 record. And there is a number of items on LATFOR
9 task--LATFOR Task Force's website that we hope to
10 have more information that we can place on the
11 website for citizen use, and that thank you very
12 much for your testimony. We hope to see you in
13 the future.
14 MS. MIRANDA: Thank you.
15 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Any questions of Ms.
16 Miranda? Thank you very much.
17 MS. MIRANDA: Thank you.
18 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Gretch--Graciela
19 Hyman [phonetic}. Graciela? Gregory Julian.
20 GREGORY JULIAN, PH.D., PACE UNIVERSITY:
21 Hello, my name is Dr. Gregory Julian. I'm a
22 political scientist for 20-plus years at Pace
23 University and a citizen activist having run for
24 office against some venerable people who were
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3 somebody who we all respect, Tom Morahan
4 [phonetic]. I, I think I've been called the Don
5 Quixote of politics sometimes but, nevertheless,
6 talking about citizen activism is very important.
7 In listening to this, I--I'm
8 conceptualizing what I--what I'm seeing here as
9 the passion play of redistricting, which is part
10 of the tragedy and comedy of that which is the
11 New York State Constitution. In 2008, when I ran
12 for Senate, I called upon the consideration of
13 having an independent commission in 2008, as well
14 as a Constitutional Convention to solve the
15 problem. Ultimately what this passion play
16 includes are things that have been mentioned by
17 everybody here in the audience and by yourselves-
18 -the necessity of having civil rights, spatial
19 compactness, independent commissions, judicial
20 decision making, congressional state, county and
21 local equity.
22 The first point here is ultimately this
23 process is owned by the people--by the people and
24 for the people. Secondly, what we've come to
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3 engaged in a politics of emotion. And this isn't
4 any fault if this is our brain at work doing
5 politics. We are emotional people and we have to
6 take that into account. And emotions are not
7 necessarily rational. But, nevertheless, as
8 important as any other ingredient in this
9 formula, the three C's of competitiveness,
10 compactness, and community of interest certainly
11 should guide your, your deliberations and, and
12 what your work clearly demonstrates an incredible
13 integrity in what you've been trying to do to
14 come to grips with how these go together.
15 And, ultimately, you're being asked as a
16 politician to be--well, let me--let me--not as a
17 politician--as an elected official, to transcend
18 the political and become a statesman, a judicial,
19 a scholar, an ethical and a consultant. Now, I
20 understand that there was a pledge, and I urge
21 you not to be constrained by that pledge. That
22 pledge was right to take in 2008, when an
23 independent commission could have been formed,
24 and instruct the legislature on what to do, by
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3 that have been brought here, but the bottom line
4 is you are under the gun.
5 And there's an urgency here to say "You
6 need to be a-political." A-political is broken
7 up into two different words--two different ways
8 you can look at a-political. One, you could look
9 at a-political about being nonpartisan in--in
10 relationship to the party. We don't want one or
11 the other party to gain an advantage
12 theoretically--and I think emotionally--in this
13 redistricting process. We are asking for justice
14 and fairness.
15 The other way in which you have to look
16 at a-political, is that redistricting without an
17 awareness or concern of the partisan political
18 balance of the electorate is maybe not a good
19 thing to follow because ultimately we are a
20 public. Blind, a political redistricting, using
21 data without party affiliation, precinct voting
22 records, census track data--might in fact not be
23 in accord with the Voting Rights Act. So I can
24 envision, as a scholar, a group of people coming
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3 following algorithms that are just pure and
4 simply frightening to me.
5 I looked at some of those algorithms
6 over the past few days. The one that was most
7 frightening is one constructed by four political
8 scientists from China and one from Stony Brook--
9 in which they use an algorithm that had absolute
10 square-ness. Wonderful. But that, to me, is
11 from a political science point of view is the
12 very problem we have to deal with. What is not
13 being considered here is that we have a political
14 decision to make.
15 From my research in, in political
16 science, I, I think the solution is pretty
17 simple. And I--that--that might be shocking to
18 you. The simplicity is to have symmetrical
19 fairness. What do I mean by symmetrical
20 fairness? Basically we all understand that you,
21 our elected officials, represent us, the public.
22 That's the process. Until we change it, you are
23 our representatives. The change in votes there
24 of any specific amount in either direction would
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3 change in, in who wins the election, if you make
4 these changes open and cognizant and transparent,
5 saying "We are actually going to follow a
6 symmetrical fairness." And I think that would
7 generate a little bit more confidence that you're
8 not feigning a political-ness, and basically
9 saying what--at this point in time, given 2011,
10 the only thing that we can really do is try not
11 to upset the balance of the cart.
12 Because the larger questions have to be
13 dealt with in a larger context, which is
14 obviously, in my mind, a real concerted effort to
15 reduce the complexity and dysfunctionality of the
16 New York State Constitution as it exists today.
17 It hasn't been revisited. There are fears that,
18 if we revisit it, we'll open a Pandora's box, but
19 ultimately that's what your decision has to be.
20 You need to look at this constitution and put
21 into place a system where we don't have to come
22 back in 2020 or 2021--but literally in 2018 we
23 could revisit this and then do it with a lot more
24 rationality.
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3 about what makes up a good district. My place of
4 work is in the 35th district. Again, it's been
5 mentioned. It was--it was a district that was
6 purportedly created for a republican, now held by
7 a democrat. The fact of the matter is that
8 district works. It works because people are
9 flexible and we need to make public decisions.
10 And our elected officials transcend those in
11 meeting the public's needs, and the same thing in
12 Rockland County where I reside. Sure, the 19th
13 congressional district under Ben Gilman had a lot
14 of resources poured into it. And when it got
15 split up into three, not two, three congressional
16 districts--17, 18, and 19--we all had to adjust.
17 But the fact of the matter is--we adjusted.
18 So I don't think the decisions that you
19 are going to make--while they're onerous, are
20 going to be so profoundly dysfunctional that it's
21 going to impact the future of politics. I just
22 really want you to understand that we've given
23 this, this crisis of confidence of, of algorithms
24 impacting our financial economic outlooks,
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3 this--ultimately is not going to work.
4 Ultimately it comes back to politics. Just try
5 to maintain symmetrical fairness. Give from one
6 party, give from another party, and take from
7 both party. I think that's all you can do.
8 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much.
9 Any questions of the panel?
10 MR. WAGNER: Thank you.
11 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you. Thomas
12 Keller.
13 THOMAS KELLER, MOUNT VERNON REPUBLICAN
14 CITY COMMITTEE: Good afternoon. I believe I'm
15 the last speaker. Hopefully I won't be short-
16 changed.
17 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Actually you're--
18 MR. KELLER: [Interposing] Second to
19 last?
20 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: This is Mr. Keller?
21 MR. KELLER: Yes.
22 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Mr. Keller?
23 MR. KELLER: Yes.
24 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: No, there's a couple
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3 respond, so. . .
4 MR. KELLER: Okay. My name's Thomas
5 Keller. I live in Mount Vernon. I'm the
6 Chairperson of the Mount Vernon Republican City
7 Committee, a thankless job--3,000 republicans,
8 25,000 democrats--and I don't represent the
9 republican party. Mr. Colety has already
10 represented it, Mr. Richter, Mr. Goldstein, Jim
11 Maisano--I don't know if he's spoken. But most
12 recently, I came up with a redistricting plan
13 which I started out--the republican party started
14 out--Colety and Perecy [phonetic]--and we kind of
15 came to the same conclusions although we, we
16 worked independently. Unfortunately the
17 democrats didn't accept any of our suggestions.
18 And Mr. Beveridge, who left--he carved
19 up the first legislative district that's
20 represented by Don--John Testa based on the
21 Lakeland School District, which for your
22 information, is in two Putnam communities and, I
23 think, three Westchester communities. Anyway,
24 he--I hope, Senator McEneny, or Assemblyman
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3 you asked for, because he never did that for me.
4 I'm working on bare bones, aged maps,
5 things like that. Anyway, let me tell you where
6 I come from. In 1963 the Supreme Court dealt a
7 blow to states' rights. They came up with "one
8 man one vote." I was a history major, but I had
9 to take either sociology or political science. I
10 took a political science course and I wrote a
11 paper on that--disagreeing with it. I also
12 disagree with the Voting Rights Act of '65. And
13 it wouldn't have happened except the, the
14 Goldwater debacle gave the democrats super
15 majorities of--I think we had 140 republican
16 congressman in the '65-'66 Congress. And at that
17 time, the old line conservative democrats from
18 the south just got out-gunned by the liberal
19 democrats from other parts of the country.
20 Anyway, I was disappointed it was
21 extended in '82 and further extended in '07, even
22 though it probably benefits republicans. But you
23 talk about crazy, quote, gerrymandering or
24 gerrymandering and look what some of the
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3 Finally, the courts--the Supreme Court
4 had to get involved and they made some sense out
5 of it. The black caucus in Congress--they liked
6 it. Republicans liked it. And there's a pretty
7 good argument that that's how they took control
8 in the '90s. Anyway, do not cede authority to
9 the independent commission. Constitutionally,
10 you're charged with doing this. Keep it in your
11 hands.
12 I don't know why the republican senate
13 passed this LATFOR. Hopefully--and I don't agree
14 with Shelly Silver on much, but I hope he thumbs
15 down on it. Rationality, please don't break up
16 cities, towns and counties--unless it's
17 absolutely necessary. Do not cross rivers. The
18 Hudson River widens as it gets down into the
19 metropolitan area. Up north it's, it's much
20 thinner, if you will. And up north is a sparsely
21 populated area that you probably can't avoid
22 crossing the Hudson up in Albany or further
23 north. And this applies not only to the Hudson
24 River but the East River and the Harlem River as
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3 Congressionally, they're 450,000.
4 They're going to have to be part of Brooklyn, I
5 guess, unless they go to New Jersey. So there
6 are examples like Staten Island--things like
7 that. You have plenty of time to do this.
8 There's no panicking. The only panic was around
9 here in the spring when the county legislators
10 redistricted. And, and they had an election this
11 year--they have an election this year. You don't
12 have elections until the even year--next year.
13 And, by the way, if you go to a June
14 primary, is this all Chuck Schumer's idea? I
15 live in a one party town, okay? If we have a
16 mayoral election--say it was to happen this year,
17 June 30th--as opposed to a primary of September
18 13. A democrat is going to win. There's four
19 democrats competing for the job--including the
20 incumbent. Whoever wins is going to have to wait
21 six months to take office--January 1st. I can't
22 believe, in this day and age, we can't get
23 military ballots out between the September
24 primary and the general election. You know, move
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3 if that--you pick up five days or ten days--
4 something like that. And if, if the votes are
5 there to move it--do it the last week in June.
6 We have school board elections the third Tuesday
7 in May, and sometimes there's a revote. First
8 the--I think second Tuesday or third Tuesday in,
9 in June. Too many--it'd be too many elections in
10 a too short period of time there?
11 Okay. All right, on to the
12 Congressional. Let me make one statement here.
13 I haven't checked with Doug Colety--he had to go
14 to court, and he left, but in his prepared
15 remarks he mentions 2012--I think he means 2002--
16 two-zero-zero-two, because he's referring to the
17 past 37th district--Suzy Oppenheimer.
18 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Who--whose testimony
19 is that?
20 MR. KELLER: Doug Colety's.
21 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you.
22 MR. KELLER: I mean, I could be wrong,
23 but I don't think so. He as 2012 and it should
24 be 2002--'02. Okay. Okay, congressional
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3 going from about 650 to 717, New York State's
4 going to lose two.
5 Let me take you back 20 years to 1991
6 and 1992. Joe DioGuardi had won in '84 and '86.
7 He lost to Nita Lowey in '88. He didn't run in
8 '90. And then, because he wasn't an incumbent,
9 when he challenged Lowey in '92--this is what the
10 district looked like. Warren Anderson, I think,
11 was the republican leader at the time. He's from
12 upstate. You know, he cut a deal, I guess, and
13 you know, he didn't--he didn't care about Joe
14 gonna run again in '92. So Nita Lowey has 67% in
15 Westchester--of her district; 4% in the Bronx,
16 going down along the water to connect to Queens--
17 which he had 29%. That's where he grew up, in
18 Forest Hills, a big Jewish population.
19 She destroyed DioGuardi in, in Queens
20 and that's why she won the election and she's won
21 ever since. It was bad that she had to go over a
22 river, but I guess if you go back to where you
23 were born, and people of your ethnic group live
24 there--it's a big advantage for you.
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3 or Elliot Engel, but I feel sorry they have to go
4 over to Rockland county--both of them. With
5 Engel it's even worse, because he's got the
6 Bronx, then he's--all of Mount Vernon, he goes up
7 along the Hudson river in Yonkers and Greenburgh
8 and then across the bridge.
9 I sympathize with the people in Rockland
10 County. They're represented by three different
11 people, and it's only a very, very small part of
12 the total district of each of those three people.
13 20--2002, Governor Pataki, Joe Bruno, Shelly
14 Silver. We lose two seats, we go from--we're
15 going from 29 to 27 now? I think we went from 31
16 to 29. Republicans had, I think, 10 or 12 and
17 Democrats had 17 or 19--in that--in that range.
18 They came to an agreement.
19 What happens, Vice President Cheney
20 comes into the state and says we got to get a
21 super majority for Tom Reynolds. Tom Reynolds,
22 former--formerly the minority assembly leader,
23 ran for Congress in '96, minority assembly leader
24 in the--in the New York assembly. Runs in '96--
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3 leadership positions--like number three or four.
4 And we gotta create a supermajority for, for Mr.
5 Reynolds.
6 Previous to that, Gilman probably would
7 have been the republican that lost and Louise
8 Slaughter, the democrat upstate. But Cheney had
9 to come in and dictate to Pataki and Bruno, and
10 we created a supermajority for Reynolds.
11 He only ran two other times, '02 and
12 '04. He didn't run in '06. And then we lost a
13 seat, gained it back, lost it again. Don't do
14 something like that.
15 If President Obama and Nancy Pelosi and
16 some other people come into the state and want
17 something done--tell them to bug off like Pataki
18 should have told Cheney to bug off.
19 And, as far as Ben Gilman goes, a
20 little--a little background. Ben Gilman. We had
21 Sue Kelly in at the time. And, uh, Steve Sweeney
22 represent of the, uh, - - . Steve Sweeney would
23 have gone all the way up to the Canadian border
24 and further west. But Sue Kelly didn't want to
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3 County. She'd rather go across the river.
4 And if that hadn't happened, Ben would
5 have maybe had a, a decent shot against Maurice
6 Hinchey, may--maybe. I don't know. Okay.
7 New York State Senate, I have to take
8 issue with, with Mr. Goldstein on--I agree with
9 him--you should do this yourself. No independent
10 redistricting commission. Let's go back. John
11 Calandra--the great John Calandra represented
12 that district. He died suddenly in '85,
13 succeeded by Guy Velella--my Senator for many
14 years. If Guy Velella didn't move into East
15 Chester, Nick Spano would have gotten it. And
16 maybe he'd still be in the Senate. But they had
17 a vote and Velella won, and Spano lost the town
18 of East Chester--32,000--heavily Republican.
19 Probably the most Republican town--maybe with the
20 exception of Harrison in Westchester County.
21 In terms of redistricting--you know, I
22 don't mind going from the Bronx to Westchester.
23 It's just crossing a street. The problem I have
24 is going over rivers--natural boundaries. And,
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3 replaced a republican senator that had to resign.
4 He's--unfortunately, he's, he's passed away. And
5 she was contested in the '90s. But then 2001 or
6 '02 came around, and republicans redistricted.
7 Velella picked up East Chester. And so it made
8 Oppenheimer's district more democrat. She liked
9 it. Except for the last election against Bob
10 Cohen--she was winning huge majorities.
11 Sometimes I don't think we even opposed
12 her. We didn't have a candidate. So, you know,
13 I don't want to--I don't want to be critical of,
14 of my chairman, Doug Colety, but a little
15 background has to come out about this. And if
16 you keep Oppenheimer's district the same--and we
17 have a big turnout in 2012--a republican victory-
18 -Bob Cohen's probably going to be the next
19 Senator. And she may retire for--between now and
20 then.
21 And, by the way, I'm not a political
22 consultant. I give my advice free of charge.
23 And I gave some advice to some people that were
24 running for the Senate--Liam McLaughlin, Bob
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3 and they lost.
4 Now, I'm not saying they would have
5 won, had they followed my advice. We, we had a
6 weak--we had a weak top of the ticket. I would
7 have preferred Steve Leavy but unfortunately it
8 wasn't--it didn't happen and our candidate made a
9 number of missteps. And, you know, it--
10 unfortunately it had repercussion down, down
11 lower on the ticket.
12 Okay, now the New York State Assembly.
13 All right, where is it? Okay, New York State
14 Assembly. My Assemblyman is right back there,
15 Mr. Pretlow. And my--no, not my Senator--Klein's
16 my Senator, but Ruth--Senator Ruth's here. 1994,
17 Governor Pataki wins. Upsets three term Mario
18 Cuomo. We had 56--he didn't have any coattails,
19 though. 56 assemblyman for republicans.
20 Gradually, late '90s, '01--we're down to 51.
21 Tochi [phonetic] voted with us. Assemblyman
22 Tochi. He was the 51st one, I believe. 50 or
23 the five--I think 51st.
24 Then came Shelly Silver's redistricting,
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3 redistricting. And then we had some special
4 elections and a few upsets, and lo and behold
5 we're down to 38. Last two elections--especially
6 the most recent one--we're up to 51 now. And
7 don't forget 17 republicans lost by less than 5%
8 of the vote.
9 The rest of the state should leave New
10 York City because 65 or 70 assembly people are
11 from New York City. If you--if you excluded New
12 York City, republicans would be dominating the
13 assembly. But anyway, okay.
14 As much as I, I accept defeat at the
15 county legislature level, I put in a--what I
16 thought was a fair plan--the republicans did--and
17 we lost. We get outvoted 12 to 5. No democrats
18 came over. One of them was retiring--Martin
19 Rogalski. He's a decent guy, he's voted with the
20 republicans on common sense things. I was
21 disappointed that he didn't come over. Rob
22 Astorino vetoed it--was overridden 12 to 5. It
23 was unfortunate, but I accept the outcome because
24 maybe someday republicans are going to be back in
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3 will do it.
4 And Rogalski had a personal thing. He
5 was redistricted by republicans back in the 9--
6 '90, '91 area, so maybe he had a personal animus
7 against, against republicans. I don't know. So
8 I'm not a fan of Shelly Silver, but I think
9 Shelly Silver and the Assembly should do it
10 themselves. I think the Senate should do it
11 themselves. And I think the county legislature--
12 which they've already done--should do it
13 themselves because maybe someday the Republicans
14 will take it over. Hopefully this November we
15 get nine or more votes, and then we can change
16 things. Thank you.
17 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much.
18 Any questions for Mr. Keller by the committee?
19 If not, thank you, Mr. Keller. Brian Kelly.
20 Brian Kelly.
21 [Break in audio]
22 BRIAN KELLY, CITIZEN, DUTCHESS COUNTY:
23 --an interest in redistricting on the one hand,
24 and I'm speaking as a district leader in the
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3 other hand.
4 And--with regards to Dutchess County,
5 what Assemblyman McEneny said about Herkimer
6 County resonates with me. Herkimer has a
7 distinct shape, which, as you described, has a
8 significant impact on any map that it's part of.
9 The way that you deal with that is to--is to
10 carve it up. And that's not necessarily in the
11 interest to the people of Herkimer County because
12 counties are inherently communities of interest.
13 And so with regard to my home county of,
14 of Dutchess County, which is a politically
15 marginal county, we have no fewer than five
16 assembly districts at this time. And our
17 population would require far fewer than three,
18 you know, I--if you were just dividing it up
19 evenly.
20 When you have a county split five ways--
21 that could be problematic for a number of
22 reasons. Certainly having, in our case, two
23 towns, which are the only Dutchess towns in their
24 respective assembly district, mean for
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3 shaft, so to speak, in terms of that given
4 assemblyman's focus on, on county issues.
5 In my own work--and I'm going to provide
6 some, some written testimony that, that describes
7 a little bit, in my own work and experimentation,
8 I've been able to develop a variety of maps that
9 carve up Dutchess County--are fewer than five
10 times. You could certainly have Dutchess County
11 divided into three pieces--one of which would be
12 based around the city of Poughkeepsie and some of
13 the close end suburban towns. And then you would
14 have a, a southern Dutchess suburban map. And
15 then you would have the, the northern Dutchess
16 and Columbia county district that we have now.
17 So I'm basically talking about the
18 100th, the 102nd, and the 103rd. And, and like I
19 said, I'll provide some, some written testimony
20 in the next day or so to, to supplement that. if
21 you do that, you end up eliminating the--kind of
22 doughnut hole phenomenon that we have now with
23 the cities in Dutchess county, where the city of
24 Beacon is surrounded by a town which is in an
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3 likewise the city of Poughkeepsie. They're
4 connected to entities across the river. You
5 could make an argument for that, as, as Susan
6 Lerner did earlier. But I think you can make a
7 stronger argument for the cohesion of a city
8 being surrounded by its immediate suburbs.
9 You've talked earlier today about the
10 difficulty in assessing the value of compactness.
11 I think in this scenario, compact can be a pretty
12 good thing, because the town of Poughkeepsie
13 revolves around the city of Poughkeepsie, and
14 keeping them with each other, I think has a lot
15 of value.
16 In the maps that I've worked with--that
17 has a pretty minimal impact on the surrounding
18 Hudson Valley districts. And as a result, you
19 would still have a free hand to do what you want
20 in other parts of the state--without necessarily
21 displacing incumbents, without causing a lot of
22 disruption. So, for example, you can--you can
23 tweak Dutchess County with minimal impact on
24 Putnam, on Westchester, on Columbia--and I think
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3 So, to conclude, a few people have come
4 up here today and they've asked for you not to
5 gerrymander their given district. Certainly the
6 earlier speakers talking about Nita Lowey, for
7 example, they, they don't want to see their
8 districts blown up. In our case, in Dutchess
9 County, what we'd like to see is what--maybe
10 gerrymandering is the wrong word, but we want to
11 stop the carving up of, of Dutchess, without any
12 kind of cohesion in mind. So thank you very
13 much.
14 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: Thank you.
15 You--will you be sending us a copy of those maps?
16 Is it with your testimony?
17 MR. KELLY: Yes, yes. My apologies for
18 not having that ready, I--
19 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: [Interposing]
20 No, that's--
21 MR. KELLY: [Interposing] I assembled a
22 series of slides, and I think a greater
23 supplemental text would be better, so I will. . .
24 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: There's plenty
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3 drawing until the public hearings are over.
4 MR. KELLY: Right.
5 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: So if you
6 could get that in to us, though, as soon as you
7 can, that would be wonderful.
8 MR. KELLY: Absolutely. Much
9 appreciated, thank you.
10 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: Thank you.
11 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you,
12 Assemblyman McEneny, and thank you Mr. Kelly.
13 That all are encouraged to submit representations
14 to the Task Force, and those will be well
15 accepted. That will conclude our hearing, but we
16 will call one more time those that were absent
17 from the scheduled list that asked to testify.
18 First is Pete Healy. Pete Healy? Gene Johnson?
19 Gene Johnson? Zulema Blair? Good afternoon, Ms.
20 Blair.
21 ZULEMA BLAIR, CHAIR, DEPARTMENT OF
22 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, MEDGAR EVERS COLLEGE,
23 CENTER FOR LAW AND SOCIAL JUSTIC: Good
24 afternoon. My name is Dr. Zulema Blair, and I am
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3 of Public Administration in the School of
4 Business at Medgar Evers College of the City
5 University of New York. And I'm going to be very
6 brief. I know we're at the end of our testimony.
7 First of all, let me just speak to
8 diversity in general, by saying that it is about
9 recognizing differences between people and
10 groups; culturally, racially, and I'll add gender
11 and age in there as well. It's about acceptance
12 and respect for particular groups.
13 And usually at the planner stage, racial
14 and ethnic diversity often predicts racial and
15 ethnic group outcomes in a particular process.
16 And from the groups that I've been speaking to in
17 Brooklyn, we think that these principles should
18 be taken into account. Otherwise, we run the
19 risk of rolling back progress towards equality in
20 redistricting decision making process.
21 Also, are some younger voters that--that
22 are now up and coming and starting to become more
23 civically engaged. They're just beginning to
24 understand redistricting. And, you know, they--
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3 So we are at a critical juncture in the current
4 electoral term, so to speak, where voter turnout
5 is finally on the rise amongst particular groups.
6 And so we would like them to be more
7 inclusive in the pro--in the process. We don't
8 want to jeopardize--to jeopardize the most
9 important political institution, because it, it
10 will be risky for all. Thus it is vitally
11 important for redistricting commissions--and I'm
12 not sure if you want to go independent. That's
13 not my argument today, but, going forward, to
14 reflect more geographic, racial, ethnic, gender
15 and age diversity of the state.
16 For example, we know New York State has
17 a significant amount of African Americans, over
18 three million, also a significant amount of women
19 voters--52%. It's not representative on the
20 commission at this particular time. Like
21 incumbents and political parties, racial and
22 women's group have a role to play in the
23 redistricting process. A relative voice in the
24 face of diversity will add the qualitative
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3 In the past we know that it's been represented.
4 We'd like for it to continue to do so.
5 In sum, the electoral institution of
6 redistricting will bring greater confidence. If
7 withstanding partisan violence--we don't want to
8 ignore that. The principles of diversity are
9 here, too. Thank you for listening.
10 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much.
11 Any members of the Task Force have a question.
12 I'm hearing none. Thank you for your testimony.
13 [Inaudible]
14 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Of course, but--would
15 you be so kind as to just--I want to make sure
16 that we've--I believe we have asked everyone that
17 has not had the opportunity. I think we have.
18 And you, you were right, you are going to be the
19 last speaker.
20 [Laughter]
21 MR. KELLER: I didn't come with prepared
22 remarks. I was jotting down notes. You know,
23 the general news made this announcement about a
24 month ago, but no follow-up--no follow-up on news
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3 I had to call Dean Skeletons [phonetic]
4 office this morning at 9:00 to see if this thing
5 was on. This wasn't very well publicized. It's
6 not your fault, but, you know. I have to talk--I
7 have to--there's a point about Ken Jenkins,
8 leader of our county legislature, and Mr.
9 Beveridge.
10 They talk about that only 5% of the
11 people are going to be switched from the existing
12 districts to the new districts. In Nassau
13 County, it's 45%. But you know what he doesn't
14 tell you is there was a horrible redistricting in
15 2001, when the democrats took over the county
16 legislature in '97 or '99. They were in charge
17 in '01. And it was a horrible, horrible thing.
18 They were getting back at Republicans
19 for what Republicans did in '91. I'm not going
20 to mention the person's name, but he took relish
21 in dividing up Scarsdale into three districts;
22 Scarsdale's 17,000. Each legislative district's
23 about 53,000 in Westchester, county legislative
24 district. And I, I guess it was retribution--or
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3 So isn't this specious reasoning when
4 Mr. Jenkins says "We only change things 5%." And
5 Beveridge--he drew up the plan and they went
6 along with it. It was a bad plan--that they're
7 only moving 5%.
8 Now, Nassau County--the Republicans are
9 in charge. If they have to take--move 45%, so
10 what? If it takes 100%, so what? You get a new
11 legislature, maybe. You get a new face. Is it
12 that bad? So this--this reason of not moving
13 people, it's just really specious.
14 Oh, again the New York State Senate.
15 The--Mr. Goldstein says that gerrymandering is
16 bad, no matter which side does it. Okay. But
17 when an incumbent does it, and he's in the
18 majority, to protect his position--you have to
19 accept the outcome. Calandra did that. Velella
20 did that. And if we had a candidate, Mr.
21 Chairman, in 2004 named Anthony Colavita Jr. we
22 would have held the Velella seat.
23 Instead, we couldn't get him to run, and
24 Nick Spano shoves a democrat down our throat
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3 Republicans get John Fleming to run. And it was
4 a three way race because there were multiple
5 party lines that the candidates got in November,
6 and Klein won--50% to 40% to 10%.
7 I asked Hoffman several times--why don't
8 you become a republican? And he says well, when
9 I win, I will. Well, it's too late. And then we
10 didn't have--we didn't have strong candidates in
11 '06 and '08, you know, in--in that district, and,
12 you know, Klein is--has done well. Anyway, thank
13 you.
14 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you, Mr.
15 Keller. With Mr. Keller's comments, that
16 concludes this hearing in Westchester. We again
17 wish to thank our hosts, the Westchester County
18 Legislature, and appreciate very much the
19 opportunity to take testimony. Assemblyman
20 McEneny.
21 ASSEMBLY MEMBER MCENENY: Thank you,
22 Senator. We had 25 speakers. That's what it's
23 been averaging, and we very much appreciate the
24 input that we get from the diverse number of
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3 people to also testify in writing by sending in
4 maps and proposals. It all becomes part of the
5 record and stay tuned. This is only the first
6 stage. 12 hearings across the state, and there
7 will be 12 more when we finally have maps drawn.
8 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you,
9 Assemblyman, and again it's very good to work
10 with you and all the members of the Task Force.
11 We thank you for your cooperation. That there
12 will be a meeting of the Task Force immediately
13 following the hearing at 2:00 p.m. in this room.
14 The hearing's adjourned. Thank you very much.
15 (The public hearing concluded at 1:53
16 p.m.)
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I, Brandi Dean, do hereby certify that the foregoing typewritten transcription, consisting of pages number 1 to
217, inclusive, is a true record prepared by me and completed from materials provided to me.
Brandi Dean, Transcriptionist
August 19, 2011
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